River Babble's Adventure in Ponyville!
by Riverfox237
Summary: Twilight Sparkle was having a day off at her castle - until some crazy pony showed up on her doorstep, telling fantastical stories about other dimensions and demanding impossible miracles of science. Now Twilight and the gang are on a mission to get her home - but they might have to deal with a few other portal-related problems in the meantime...
1. In Which There Is An Interruption

It was a beautiful day at the Castle of Friendship. The sun shone pleasantly through its many windows, sending prismatic rainbows bouncing off of the solid crystal structure and blinding the occasional unfortunately-positioned passerby. With a surprisingly slow schedule for the two-person castle staff this week, it seemed a good day to relax and do something fun – which, for one member of said "staff", currently involved roaming the halls with her face buried in the newest publication by an expert in the field of theoretical quantum magiphysics.

Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn Princess of Friendship, flipped a page of the book that floated in front of her in a cloud of pink magic, violet eyes scanning the words with an air of intense concentration. Another cloud of pink flared to life at her side, lifting pencil to paper and scribbling hurried notes while Twilight continued to examine the book. "The Rhinestone Theory does compensate for some of the spacial differentials, but this alternative balancer to the dimensional matrix seems highly unorthodox. Surely somepony would have realized by now if all that was needed was the same basic spell formula behind creating Soupy's Soap Bubbles!" She paused both her writing and her walking for a second, then continued. "Actually, I can absolutely see why nopony thought of that. Definitely will need to do some tests of my own to verify the hypothesis, ooo, this is going to be so much fun! I'll have Spike go shopping for—"

She was five steps past the small dragon waving for her attention before he cleared his throat. "Hey, Twilight, hold up!"

Twilight stopped and spun, beaming her number-one assistant a big smile. "Oh, Spike! I was just looking for you!"

"Yeah, I could see how hard you were looking," Spike quipped, giving her a knowing smirk. "It still freaks me out how you can walk and read _and write_ like that without smacking into things." He trotted the last few steps to catch up with her, one of his ear fins cocked in the air.

"Peripheral vision is greatly under-appreciated," Twilight quipped back, magically snapping the book closed as she considered the short purple-and-green dragon. "Sorry, you know how I tune things out when I'm focused. I need you to— Wait. You were trying to get my attention. Did you need something?"

Spike raised an eye ridge in disbelief. "Well, I wouldn't say it's _me_ that needs something… You're telling me you still haven't noticed?"

The purple alicorn paused then, letting her senses become fully alert. As she listened, she began to pick up on a distant, echoing sound of knocking. Its seemed to be coming from the castle's front door…and, if Twilight was hearing correctly, it was quickly growing more and more frantic. Twilight's eyes widened. "Someone's at the door?!" She whirled around and jumped into the air with wings flared, her pink magic carrying her book, pencil, notepad, and Spike. "How long have they been knocking? Why didn't you answer it? We have GOT to get some kind of staff!"

"Just a few minutes, I ran into you first, and that's what I keep saying!" Spike grumbled as he settled into the magical floating ride. The subject of hiring staff was an oft-discussed and equally-oft-forgotten issue, since, being that they lived in a magical self-maintaining crystal castle made of the power of harmony and rainbows, the need for extra ponies wandering around their home didn't seem important most of the time. Except, of course, for occasions like unexpected visitors at the distressingly distant front door.

Her head whirling with a mixture of confusion over the anxious knocking (which had reached a woodpecker-like tempo), curiosity about who could be visiting (most visitors called ahead, and her friends just came in), and irritation at having her casual study of the fascinating field of scientific spell research interrupted, Princess Twilight Sparkle raced down the stairs, landed in the front hall, placed Spike and her supplies safely down, and opened the front door to her castle home.

"Sorry for the wait! Can I help—?"

" _TWILIGHT SPARKLE!_ " The wail preceded its maker with such a combination of volume, relief, and frank panic that it blew Twilight back a step. "Please, I need your help! I'm a human from another dimension and I woke up in this pony body a little bit ago and I have no idea how I got here and you're the super-magical alicorn princess who knows how to handle this stuff and _for pity's sake can you help me get home?!_ "

Twilight Sparkle blinked, allowing herself a brief moment to assess the situation (and get her hearing back). Standing on the front step of the castle, hoof still outstretched from beating on the yellow door, stood a unicorn mare. Her coat was black, with a mane and tail in a bright combination of neon blues – and frazzled as if the wearer had just rolled out of bed. A cutie mark of an unfamiliar pencil mechanism marked her flank, its tip trailed by a river of blue that created the overall impression of the letter "B". And right now, she was staring at Twilight with blue, wild eyes, her chest heaving in desperate breaths.

The rest of what had just been said finally processed. Twilight blinked again, opened her mouth, closed it again, furrowed her brow, opened and closed her mouth one more time, and shook her head. Then she stepped aside, frowning slightly, and said, "Perhaps you'd better come inside."

Maybe the theoretical quantum magiphysics could wait.

* * *

Twilight decided to use the small antechamber off of the main hall; it wasn't used that often, but it had comfortable furniture and was only a short walk from the front door. The strange mare now sat on one of the couches, making a visible effort to get a hold of herself. After summoning a tea set and offering a cup to her visitor, Twilight stepped out into the hall, with the parting reassurance that she would be right back.

"Spike, I need you to get a hold of the girls," she said in a voice too low for their strange visitor to hear. Behind them, a sound like disgruntled muttering was followed by the loud, disturbingly-porcelain _clack_ of something hitting the floor.

Spike saluted, shooting uneasy glances at the door. "You sure you wanna be left alone with her? She sounds a little…" He waved a green claw in circles by his right ear-fin.

"Please, Spike, I'm an alicorn Princess," she said lightly, flaring her wings for emphasis. It still felt strange hearing those words come out of her mouth, but Spike needed the calming reminder. "I'm sure I can handle one upset unicorn." A thoughtful frown crossed her face as she added, "And maybe she's not crazy. She mentioned 'humans' – that's what my friends through the magic mirror are called, remember? I think I'd better hear her out." Twilight nudged her assistant to get him moving before turning back to the door. "Just let the girls know that it's probably not urgent, but I'd like them to come by just in case."

As she reentered the room, Spike's running footsteps behind her made it clear how urgent _he_ felt the situation was.

The blue-and-black unicorn snapped upright as Twilight came back in. She was smiling nervously. "Hi, you're back. I'm so sorry, I can't for the life of me figure out how you grip with these things…" The statement made little sense to Twilight - until she saw the teacup lying on the marble floor. That explained the dropping sound a moment ago. The black mare shuffled her hooves anxiously. "I don't, uh, think it's broken, but do you think you could…?"

Alright, crazy or not, this pony was definitely _acting_ like somepony – er, someone – who had never had hooves before. Twilight magically levitated the empty cup to the table, then filled it with tea and placed it front of the unicorn again. The mare watched this simple magical feat with the wide-eyed wonder of, well, somepony who'd never seen a magical spell before. "It's fine. The cups are pretty durable, and it's easy to clean up in here," Twilight said soothingly. As the mare made a nervous second effort to pick up the cup, lifting it clumsily pressed between her hooves until she could take a sip, Twilight settled onto the opposite couch. Might as well get the ball rolling. "Alright, I'm listening. Why don't you start from the beginning?"

A huge sigh of relief whooshed from the unicorn's mouth, her cup almost slipping from her hooves. "Oh, _thank you._ I thought, I _hoped_ maybe you'd listen to me; I mean, this has to sounds crazy! But I figure, you've at least _met_ humans, with that magic mirror thingie, and you deal with crazy stuff all the time—"

"Hold it!" Twilight's eyes widened. "You know about Canterlot High? Then that _is_ where you're from!" Well, this would be easy enough; they could just travel through the mirror and—

But the mare was shaking her head. She looked embarrassed. "No, no, sorry… Shoot, didn't mean to make things more confusing. See, I'm a human, but I'm not...THAT kind of human. Like, your friends there are sort of the same as your friends here, with the bright color schemes and the names, right?" She waved both of her forehooves at herself, then flinched as her cup slipped and splashed tea on the cushions. "Dangit, sorry, anyway, where I come from, that's not the case. Humans in my world are a pretty mundane set of colors, mostly different shades of brown, and there's no magic. Well, that's debatable, but we won't get into witchcraft because I don't like it—"

"But how do you _know_ that?" Twilight interrupted, eyes narrowing. "You say you're not from Canterlot High, or from Equestria, but then how do you know what humans in Canterlot High look like?" Another, equally suspicious thought entered Twilight's head, and she found herself pacing the room, casting hard looks at her mysterious visitor. "For that matter, how did you know to come to me? You act like you know who I am already, which is impossible if you're from another world entirely!" The more she rolled the idea over in her head, the more Twilight's skepticism grew. This pony's story just didn't hold water.

Maybe Spike was right, and she really was crazy. Or worse…

The mare didn't answer for a long moment, massaging her head in one hoof and muttering something about "screwing up" and "way to break the space-time continuum". She didn't seem to have trouble holding her teacup now, but Twilight allowed for the possibility that she too distracted to overthink the simple task. It had happened to Twilight when she had fingers. "Aaaugh, I didn't realize how hard this would be to explain…" the unicorn sighed. Her blue eyes met Twilight's, waves of uncertainty, fear, and, interestingly, frank stubbornness passing over her face. "Um...okay. I'm going to try and lay this out in a way that...makes some kind of sense?"

Twilight nodded. The unicorn took a deep breath, stroking her blue tail distractedly. "Okay, picture this. Let's say that, where I'm from, we sort of...have a way of looking at other...worlds? Like yours? And Canterlot High? The point is, I know I'm not from _those_ worlds, because with this...technology of ours, I've _seen_ your world. And that one. That's how I know that they're _different_ from mine."

Twilight raised an eyebrow; her confidence in this story was not growing by great leaps and bounds. The unicorn must have sensed this, because she did a frantic erasure mark with her hooves. "I can prove it! For example, I know about your visits to the mirror world of Canterlot High. You stopped Sunset Shimmer when she stole your crown, and became a crazy demon creature, and tried to zombify the school. And then in the next mov-uh, visit, you helped your human friends AND Sunset stop the, oh, what're they called...the Sirens! In a rock concert battle. There was a massive, magical unicorn in the sky. It was kind of cool," she added with a distant grin.

"You know, you _could_ know all of that because you _came_ from that world," Twilight pointed out delicately. She was the Princess of Friendship, she reminded herself, and Princesses of Friendship give ponies a chance to prove they're not off their rocker. At least the possibility of this pony being a spy was growing less likely, unless she was just the most unconvincing and underprepared spy in the history of Equestria.

The mare facehoofed. "Right, okay. Sorry, I'm _way_ better at explaining things when I can write them down first. Let's try something more specific…" She pointed a hoof at Twilight. "Your world, then. With our, um, technology, I've seen a few things that aren't common knowledge. Liiiike…" She thought for a moment, then brightened. "Oh, how about how you got your—! No, that's no good, need something more current." Twilight blinked, suddenly feeling an intense desire to know what the unicorn had been about to say, but she was already brightening with another idea. "The Cutie Map! You have that table that turns into a map of all of Equestria, right? When you defeated Tirek and got your new powers from the Tree of Harmony, it created this castle, and a 3D map that calls your cutie marks when it's sending you on a friendship mission!"

Twilight's ears perked upright, and she stopped pacing. It wasn't exactly a secret that the table in the Council Room could turn into a magical map, and her friends' families knew about it...but it wasn't common knowledge, either. She frowned slightly. "Alright, that's a little more convincing. But, I'm sorry, I still need more evidence than that." While the idea of another alternate world with an unknown civilization that apparently lacked magic and yet had the capability of seeing into other realities was fascinating, Twilight kept reminding herself to be careful.

The unicorn chewed her lip, thinking hard. "Okay…how about this. I'll name off the missions I know you guys have been on." She held one hoof up, and pointed at the frog of it with the other. "First mission: all of you Elements of Harmony girls go to that weird, unnamed village where everypony has equals signs for cutie marks. Fluttershy saves the day by revealing Starlight Glimmer's fake mark with water, and the villagers help you get your marks back before Starlight gets away." Her hoof pointed at her other hoof again, though maybe lightly to the left of the last point. "Mission two: Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash go to Gryphonstone. Almost save the lost idol of something-or-other, but find out that the real mission was to help Gilda see the power of friendship so she can help the Gryphonstone gryphons get back on their feet. Pinkie Pie also saves the gryphonscones through the power of baking powder." Another point, again slightly farther to the left. "And mission three: Rarity and Applejack go to Manehatten to help Coco Pommel organize a theatre event so the locals would realize the value of coming together as a community! Also, Rarity replaced Applejack's old cowboy hat that got torn up." She stopped and stared at the hoof she had been pointing at for a long moment. "Man, that hand gesture works _way_ better with hands."

Twilight Sparkle realized that her jaw was hanging open, and snapped it shut. The unicorn quit studying her hooves long enough to notice this, and gave a lopsided grin. "It's a little hard to swallow, huh?"

"A...a little, yes," the alicorn princess stammered, her mind working at lightning speed. The Idol of Boreous – Rainbow claimed they hadn't shared that incident with the anyone, in case it upset the gryphons to know their precious relic was lost for good. This pony definitely hadn't been at Starlight's village (a black-coated pony was rare enough not to miss). And Applejack's hat!

Twilight frowned again as something occurred to her. "You only mentioned three friendship missions, though. What about the mission Fluttershy and I took to help the Hooffields and McColts?"

The mare stared, blue eyes completely blank of comprehension. "The what with the who now? You did that? Nah, I don't know what you're talking about there. Must not be something I've seen yet." A small grin crossed her face. "That sounds neat, though."

That was a little comforting, at least; whatever method this pony was using to observe (or spy on?) her and her friends must not be entirely current. And, as much as she wanted to be cautious, Twilight had to admit one thing: it was hard to accuse a pony of lying when she looked and acted _that_ clueless.

"So do you believe me now?" The black-coated unicorn watched her anxiously, pawing at her blue-striped tail.

Twilight took a deep, slow breath... and let it out as an amazed laugh. "I'll admit, it's getting a little bit easier to believe your story." She began to pace the room again, her scientific curiosity buzzing. "If what you're saying is true… then, this is an amazing discovery! The idea of another universe with the ability to see into other worlds, and you say you do it without magic? I can only imagine the knowledge you gain from looking into other realities!" _Hopefully it doesn't involve anything too embarrassing for me and my friends_ , the logic centers of her brain noted, but she was too busy being fascinated to pay attention to it. Something else that had been puzzling Twilight suddenly fell into place, and she turned to face the mare. "So that's how you knew to come to me for help?"

"Yes!" The mare bounced on the couch cushions, so giddy with relief that her smile was almost literally splitting her face in half. "Oh _man_ , I _knew_ this was a good idea! Yes, you're kind of a big deal in our, uh, thingie, so I knew you were super skilled with magic and deal with bizarre problems like this all the time! Plus, I mean, you do magical research and stuff, and you have that mirror that travels to other dimensions, so if _anyone_ could figure this out—"

"Alright, alright!" Well, that had been a bit more flattering than expected, although she wasn't entirely sure about how she felt about being the object of study for an unknown collection of otherdimensional beings. "I mean, I can't promise I'll be able to help, but… Look, we've gotten really far off track. Let's go back to what actually happened to you, and this time, please try to tell me everything in order." A gentle way of pointing out that they had been going off on more rabbit trails than Angel Bunny at the annual Easter Egg Hide.

"Okay. Right. Okay." The blue-maned mare took a deep breath to compose herself. When she spoke again, it was calmer and more deliberate. "Okay. The last thing I remember is, I was sitting at my computer, working on some writing." She paused, biting her lip. "Um, do you know what computers…?"

"Yes, I know what computers are," Twilight replied quickly, feeling a dash of pride at her human-based knowledge. She'd really been meaning to discuss the concept behind those portable machines to some of the technical institutes, computing technology was still ages behind—

"Great! Anyway, it was probably around 8 o'clock in the evening, and I was finally getting some writing done. Then all of a sudden, I feel this... _buzzing_ sensation. It was really freaky, like the time I gave blood and almost passed out. The next thing I know, I'm waking up in a field, and it's the middle of the day, which was an immediate red flag. I didn't even notice the whole 'pony' thing at first because I was a little upset about passing out, I've _never_ done that before…" She noticed Twilight's motivating stare and took another calming breath. "Anyway, once I figured out what and where I was, and, you know, decided I hadn't just lost my mind, I came to find you." She flexed one of her forehooves, giving it a considering look. "You know, I always thought it'd be tricky to learn to run on four legs, but it came a lot quicker than I expected. You guys get great shock absorption with these things."

The mare fell silent at last, watching Twilight expectantly. Twilight, for her part, was glad of the silence. This wasn't a lot of evidence to go on, unfortunately; a buzzing sensation, then blacking out? The physical transformation seemed similar to how the mirror affected a traveler's body, so maybe it was a universal constant for dimensional travel. But for her to just be plucked out of the air? That suggested a powerful space-time anomaly or perhaps some kind of magical intervention…

This would definitely take further study. Twilight stood to her hooves, eyes bright with determination, and was just opening her mouth to put her first plan into motion, when the door slammed open and ponies poured in like colorful floodwaters.

"Yo, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash was in first, followed closely by Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack. Spike managed to squeeze into the small antechamber as well, which, with six ponies and a baby dragon, had quickly gone from cozy to crowded. "Who's this crazy pony Spike's all worked up about?" Her pink eyes shot to the mare, and she frowned. "Is that her? She doesn't look so tough."

Twilight gave Spike a very pointed glare that sent the clear message of exactly how much she approved of his popularizing the idea that their visitor was crazy. She would have turned a similar glare on Rainbow Dash for saying it out loud like that, except Rainbow Dash wasn't paying enough attention to notice. "Thanks for coming, girls. You got here faster than I expected!" She mentally counted her friends again. "Where's Fluttershy?"

"Dunno where Fluttershy is, but we were over at Sugarcube Corner getting cupcakes for Gummi's birthday party," Pinkie Pie explained, and walked right past Rainbow Dash to stick her nose in the face of their guest. "Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie! Welcome to Ponyville!"

"Hi," the mare answered back with a nervous smile.

"Spike said this here pony was claimin' to be one o' them humans from some other dimension or somethin'," Applejack put in, studying said pony with interest. "Ya look like a normal pony t'me, if'n ya don't mind my sayin', ma'am."

"No, you're good."

"I for one am _quite_ interested in hearing this story," Rarity said, eyes shining eagerly. The six must have run to get here, because the pale unicorn was busily patting loosened hair-wisps back into her otherwise perfectly styled mane. "Twilight's told us all about the human world, and I've just been dying to talk to one of you. You _must_ tell me all about what the latest fashions are like!"

"Ah, she might not be from the same human world that I've been to, Rarity," Twilight put in. This drew confused looks and a new slurry of questions from everypony, and suddenly Twilight understood why her visitor had looked so uncomfortable trying to explain this bizarre story.

It was during this time that some ponies began to realize that the black-coated mare was still looking expectantly at Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie, for her part, had decided that this was a staring contest; if it were, they would have been dead tied, because they'd been staring at each other without blinking for a good thirty seconds. But finally, their visitor tilted her head and asked, "Well?"

Pinkie Pie tilted her head right back. "Well what?"

"Aren't you going to…I dunno, tell them my backstory or something?"

"Why would I do that, silly?" Pinkie giggled, then suddenly leaned uncomfortably close to the pony's face. "Do I know you from somewhere?" She gasped loudly. "You're not my secret penpal from Gryphongolia, are you?! This is _super_ , we are going to have _such_ a cool party for you—!"

"No, nonono, no, I'm not! I just, it…it's… it just seems like something you'd…" The mare groaned and put a throw pillow over her head, curling up like she was checking to see if she could melt into the couch cushions. "Nevermind, just ignore that, please," her muffled voice said through the fabric.

Twilight resisted the urge to chuckle, then scolded herself. No, she was a Princess! And until proven otherwise, this pony was a distressed traveler from another dimension, who needed help getting home. Exactly the sort of problem the Elements of Harmony could help with!

Twilight cleared her throat, drawing the attention of the girls (and Spike). "Well! Now that everypony's here – except Fluttershy – I suppose introductions are in order! Girls, this is—" Twilight stopped. She spent a long moment frantically searching her memory as a deep, purple blush began to work across her face. Finally, unable to avoid it any longer, Twilight Sparkle turned to the mare under the throw pillow and said, in tones of deep embarrassment, "I am _so_ sorry. Here we've been talking all this time, and I never asked your name!"

"Huh?" A blue eye peeked out from around the pillow. "You di— Oh wow, you're right! I was so freaked out, I didn't notice." Setting the throw pillow aside, the mare sat up properly and dipped her head towards the general crowd of staring eyes. "I'm, uh, Jenn. Nice to meet you."

"Ima Gem?" Twilight repeated. Well, it wasn't the strangest name she'd—

"Wait, what? No, my _name_ is Jenn _._ J-E-N-N. Short for Jennifer. I mean, I go by River sometimes, but…" Jenn stopped then and looked down, shooting an oddly suspicious glare at her B-shaped cutie mark.

Twilight searched her mental catalogue for information on the human's name, figuring it would provide some useful information about her possibly-human guest. To her surprise, she came up empty. Almost every culture she knew of assigned some sort of significance to their names, but the etymology of "Jennifer" was completely unfamiliar—

"What kind of a name is that?" Rainbow Dash asked, once again demonstrating her skill at wielding the Blunt Stick. "It sounds weird."

Rarity jabbed her in the side, which started a glaring match between the two of them. "Well, I think it's a lovely name!"

"I dunno, she looks more like a River Babble to me!" Pinkie Pie added off-handedly.

Jennifer's jaw dropped. "Did you just—?"

"Ya know," Applejack cut in, shooting Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie a pointed look, "it might do us all a sight more good to here this pony's story before we get lost fussin' over what kind of name she has." The apple-farming earth pony turned to her purple friend and, in tones of great patience, said, "Maybe ya'll better fill us in on what ye know now, Twa'light."

"I think that's a good idea," Twilight said, making a mental note to help Applejack clean out the barn this weekend as a much-deserved gesture of gratitude. "As I was saying… Jenn, this is Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and you've already met Spike. Now, I think it would be best for all of us if you told them exactly what you told me." _And then I can get their opinions on what to do about it._

"Oh…right…" Jenn looked at each of the expectant faces staring at her. Her ears wilted as she heaved a weary sigh. "Let's see if I can keep it all straight a second time…"


	2. In Which There Is A Lot Of Yelling

Somewhere close to and yet incredibly far from Ponyville, a figure stirred and stretched with a cavernous yawn, having just woken from his usual 11:15 AM nap. He was quite looking forward to the day's events, especially considering the new project he was starting. And speaking of which, now was probably a good time to check up on how the beginnings of said project were going.

The figure summoned a magical orb that peered through the cracks of space-time to show him the location and pony he wished to see. An amused hum passed his lips as he spotted his victim – ahem, _project._ She looked _deliciously_ confused about her situation, which was always the best part—

Something caught his eye. He peered closer, then widened the viewing portal to see better. The scene that filled out before him made him suck in a breath sharply.

"No! What—? That's _cheating!"_

With a flash of light and a puff of smoke, the figure crushed the viewing portal in his hand and teleported away.

.

* * *

.

Meanwhile, in Ponyville, a certain brown stallion wearing a white collar and green bowtie frantically twisted dials and pulled levers. The inside of the stallion's workshop was always a mess, but as he trotted to and fro between beeping machines and unfolding papers of printed data, the mess seemed to visibly grow in size and mastery of the floor space.

"Great whickering stallions! It's off the charts! Where is that—? Muffins! Where are you?!"

A light gray head poked out upside-down from the top of one of his failed experiments, the mare's off-set pupils staring down at him. "Yeah, Doc?"

"I need that device you were using to prop up your popsicle stick house!"

The head disappeared for a moment, then reappeared, holding a bulbous gauge with a rapidly-spinning red needle at the center. "Oh, yeah, it did great! I'm almost up to the fourteenth floor!" she giggled, wings fluttering over her bubble cutie mark as she barely kept from tipping off of her awkward perch.

"Well, I'm afraid I need it now, my dear," Doc said firmly, holding out his hoof. Muffins dropped it inaccurately, and the earth pony stallion had to sidestep to avoid a bruise on the head. He snagged the device without a word of complaint and ran to another machine, where he rammed the gauge into one of the gaping holes, and twisted it into place.

The gauge immediately exploded, sending tinkling glass everywhere. Doc ducked, but his eyes remained locked on the readouts as a blaring alarm began to ring.

"Great whickering stallions…" he whispered. "It's happened again."

Muffins let out a small victory cheer as she reached the fourteenth floor of her popsicle stick house, and crowned it with one of her trademark muffins.

.

* * *

.

Confusion reigned in the council hall of the Castle of Friendship. The girls all sat at their assigned chairs, and the supposed interdimensional visitor in pony form hovered next to Twilight, looking more than a little frazzled at all the arguments echoing around (and at) her.

"Ah don't like it!" Applejack said loudly, thumping her hoof against the crystal table. They had moved here after the tiny antechamber proved to be too small a space to handle this many arguing ponies. "If'n she is tellin' the truth, and I don't mean to say for sure she ain't, why're they spyin' on us?! Them's our private lives they're lookin' at!"

"We, uh…don't think of it as spying…," Jenn put in timidly.

Applejack fixed her with a penetrating look. "Then what do ya call it?"

"It, uh… Look, it's just something we do! We watch interesting things happening in other places!" Jenn said, looking more than a little pained. "I promise, nobody's doing it to bother anybody! We didn't even know it was _possible_ to cross dimensions like this and meet you for real!"

"That's as may be," Rarity said, more calmly than Applejack, although she also still looked bewildered from hearing the blue-maned unicorn's story. "And perhaps it's not so great a drama as you think, Applejack. My question is, how can we be sure that you're telling the truth, Miss Jenn? Is there some way to confirm that your story is on the level? I think we're all a little concerned that this might be an elaborate cover-up for why you know so much personal information."

"It _would_ be kinda weird if a spy just came running up and said all that super spy-sounding stuff that makes her look like a spy, though," Pinkie Pie put in, pink curls bouncing as she doe-skipped around the room for no apparent reason. "It sure made us all suspicious super fast!"

Twilight let out a sigh of relief at the sensible point from her earth pony friend. It was amazing what intelligent observations could come out of the normally absent-minded Pinkie. "Pinkie Pie has a point. I think we should at least take steps to verify Jenn's story. In fact, I might have some equipment from my mirror machine experiments that could do the trick!"

"You been experimentin' on that thing?" Applejack looked slightly concerned. "You sure that's wise, sugarcube?"

"Sure!" The alicorn's eyes cut to the side. "Probably. No dimensional rifts in space-time so far!" Several mumbled groans filled the air.

"Well, I'm sure it will be alright," Rarity said, forcing herself to relax. "If anypony can do something like…that, it's you, Twilight."

"I think this whole thing could be bogus." Rainbow Dash, who had been flying circles around the overhanging tree stump in the room to think, swept down and landed square in the middle of the table. She pointed a hoof at Jenn, and narrowed her pink eyes to slits. There was a long, tense silence. Then the rainbow-maned pony's face grew into a huge grin. "But if it isn't, it sounds _awesome!_ Finally, we get some funky travelers from another world on _this_ side of the mirror!" Rainbow bucked the air energetically. "If it's anything like what you run into every time you visit Canterlot High, Twilight, we're probably gonna get some cool monster to fight any day now! Or maybe she's part of some interdimensional task force that's waiting to sweep in when we open the mirror." The cyan pegasus did a quick one-two while wearing a huge grin. "Either way, I get to kick some tail!"

Rarity and Jenn wore identical horrified looks. "Oh, I _hope_ not, Rainbow. My new line for the Summer Sun Fashion Show is due in two weeks!"

"No way, there's no big monsters on my side of things!" Jenn said hurriedly. "Unless you open the portal in the middle of the tiger exhibit at a zoo or something. We're really pretty boring in the monster department." She paused for a moment, chewing her lip. "And, okay, _I'm_ not part of some secret task force, but I might caution against jumping through the portal and introducing yourselves. Pretty sure more than a few people would absolutely freak out in a bad way."

Twilight considered this. While it sounded less than optimal, she did remember a conversation with Canterlot High's Rarity – mentions of governments and power-hungry organizations that might not react positively to learning there was magic in the world. It made sense that another human world like Jenn's, where magic wasn't native, would have similar issues. And at least Jenn had been upfront about the issue – it heightened Twilight's confidence that she was making the right decision.

"Alright then!" Twilight stood up, nodding her head sharply. "We'll approach this with caution, but I think it's safe to move forward with testing. First, let's see if we can verify Jenn's status as a native of another dimension. I've already started, in fact." And she drew out the blinking hoofheld device she had been hiding under the table during this entire conversation.

Jenn leaned close to it with her eyes wide, not noticing that other ponies in the room were doing the same. "Oooo, cool. What's that?"

"This," Twilight said proudly, "is a Dimensional Cross-Particle Energy Reader. It measures foreign particles related to travel between universes! I've been working on it since I discovered their existence in follow-up studies on my own travels through the mirror. Who knew I'd get to test it out so soon?!" She rubbed her hooves together with a giggle, but stopped abruptly when she realized that everypony was staring at her oddly. Twilight cleared her throat, blushing. "Ahem. Anyway, I let it sit under the table so it could get a good reading on you while we talked. It should know something any minute."

Jenn beamed; that was definitely not the face of somepony who was afraid of their cover story being blown wide open. "That's awesome! And then you can use it to find some way to get me home?"

"Well… we'll see," Twilight said cautiously. "I'll certainly do my best. I have a theory that adapting your energy signature to one of Star Swirl's original spells will let me link to your world through the mirror that takes me to Canterlot High. It could take a few days of testing." Unable to hold it in anymore, Twilight let a huge grin spread across her face. "This is going to be _so much fun!_ " she squealed.

Jenn looked bothered for a moment. "A few days…? I didn't think I'd be gone that long," she murmured. Twilight's excitement dimmed a little at the worry on the possibly-a-human's face.

"Don't worry, dear," Rarity said soothingly. "I'm sure Twilight will work as quickly as she can." Several other voices piped up to add to the encouragement, which had a visible calming effect on Jenn. She took a deep breath, and nodded her head slowly.

"Well, I mean… You guys are my best bet of getting home. If I have to wait, I have to wait." Jenn's face grew a little more strained. "But if you can hurry it at all without, y'know, putting anybody in danger, I'd really appreciate it."

Twilight smiled again, already feeling the wave of internal energy she always got when she was on the brink of a new research topic. This could open an entirely new field in the understanding of inter-dimensional connectivity! The readings on her Dimensional Cross-Particle Energy Reader were already chock-full of interesting new data that she could decipher, and once she studied the effects of the human-turned-pony's disruption of the native Equestrian magic particle fields, she could begin developing the matrix to unite the mirror's interdimensional spell holdings with the foreign particles so as to lock onto that one singular universe through reverse-wave photon spread—

"Well, all this sure sounds like it'll be fun for _you_ , Twalight," Applejack said with a half-smile, which was when Twilight realized that she'd started chattering all of this techno-babble out loud. But the others just gave her those knowing grins and eye-rolls they always did when they had to deal with her Science Mode (except for Jenn, who just stared at her with amazed incomprehension). Applejack nodded at Jenn; the tough earth pony mare still looked cautious, but Twilight's confidence seemed to have relaxed her suspicions a little. "Ah don't know how we can help, but if you say this here pony needs it, we'll all pitch in where we can."

"Naturally, darling."

"And we'll be ready to pound the monsters when they show up!" Rainbow thrust her chest out proudly.

"Then we'll throw a sending-you-home-to-your-own-dimension party! Whoopie!" Pinkie Pie turned a somersault.

Twilight opened her mouth to thank her friends. She was surprised when she was interrupted. "Oh man, thank you guys _so much._ " Everypony turned to look at Jenn, who had planted her hooves on the table. She looked like she was about to cry, and scrubbed at one moist eye with her hoof. "This is, just…I can't tell you how freaked out I was, and I know you don't have any reason to trust what I'm saying, but I really, really want to go home and—" She broke off, sucking in a breath. "Just…thanks a lot. I'm sure if anyone can figure it out, it's you guys."

Even Applejack looked touched by the genuine-sounding words. Twilight nodded to herself, feeling warm inside. They were definitely doing the right thing, helping this pony – human – get home. A little bit of worry niggled past her good feelings, though: first, she had to find out if she _could_.

Twilight brushed off the negative thought. This might not be a Friendship Problem, but it _was_ probably a magic/science problem, and that was the next best thing!

.

* * *

 _._

 _One Hour Later_

It was not, in fact, the next best thing, for anypony.

"Okay, _this_ time it's sure to work!" Twilight said, exactly as she had the last seven times they'd tried the mirror machine that was currently connected to Jenn's head by a large, outlandish helmet that resembled a colander full of wires. Jenn flinched involuntarily as Twilight reached for the lever that would turn it on.

"Is it going to shock me again?"

"Noooooomaybe. I'm pretty sure I worked those bugs out this time." Twilight cracked a nervous grin that did nothing to help Jenn feel better, but, seeing no alternatives, Jenn just closed her eyes and braced herself, praying that _this_ time, something would actually _happen._

She sort of got her wish; an electric shock that makes your hair (mane?) stand perfectly on end and sends you five inches off the floor is definitely something. " _YEOW!"_ As soon as she could feel the floor under her feet again, Jenn ripped the heavy helmet off of her head and scrambled backwards, panting. "Oh _come on!_ " she yelled, more at the hunk of metal than at anyone in particular. "What've you got against me, you jerk piece of tinfoil?!" Taking a few more deep breaths to calm her heart rate, Jenn looked beseechingly back at Twilight, who had already started fiddling with the machine again. "Is this ever going to work?" she moaned.

" _Yes,_ " Twilight said firmly, already digging back into the machinery that she'd been fiddling with, attaching things to, and reassembling parts of for the better part of an hour. "We're close to a breakthrough, I'm sure of it! Any time now!" But this time, there was no hiding the doubt in her voice. Jenn heaved a sigh and flopped on the floor, face buried in her weird pony arm-legs while she tried to shut out the weirdness around her for a few minutes.

Despite Twilight's optimism starting out, the last hour had quickly deteriorated everyone's moods. Instead of helping Twilight to narrow down the problem, the constant failures were confusing the alicorn to the point of open frustration. Spike could at least act as a gofer and be of some help, but Rainbow Dash was bored out of her mind, bouncing off of the ceiling supports of Twilight's laboratory like a bird searching vainly for a window, and Applejack and Rarity had invented a game where they pointed out interesting shapes formed by the crooked spindles of printer paper flopped accordion-like across the floor. Pinkie Pie had been sent off forty-five minutes ago to find Fluttershy in case they needed to use the Elements of Harmony against any attacks of interdimensional monsters, but neither mare had returned yet, which of course meant that everyone was secretly jealous of them.

And through all of this, Jenn kept herself busy counting all of the reasons why she'd rather be anywhere than here, in a pony body, wearing weird pseudo-science gadgetry on her head that kept randomly shocking her, and wondering when (or _if_ ) she would ever get home at this rate.

Sitting around watching Twilight work (and having nothing better to do than sit around being a test dummy) had given Jenn some time to think about her situation. She'd long since decided that this couldn't be a dream – none of her dreams were this vivid without her _knowing_ it wasn't real – but that didn't make it any less amazing or freaky to be walking around in a Saturday morning kids' cartoon. And the irony was not lost on her that this was probably a dream come true for some people. The chance to explore another dimension? The thrill of meeting fictional characters in person? How exciting! How adventurous! And she liked adventure, right?

Except adventure in stories were usually a lot more exciting, and a lot less standing around in a room being simultaneously bored, anxious, and uncomfortable. (Well, okay, they did usually stress the uncomfortable parts.) And many of said adventure stories downplayed that whole bit where the heroine fretted over how worried her family was going to be when they discovered she was mysteriously gone without a trace, not to mention what it would do to her job. That depressing line of thought kept growing on itself, until Jenn spent only half of her time being bored and uncomfortable, and the other half suppressing anxiety attacks. She really, _really_ wanted to go home, and the fact that doing so didn't look any closer to happening wasn't helping her feel any better.

The human-turned-pony was almost relieved when Twilight finally burst with frustration.

"I don't understand!" The lavender alicorn trotted in a circle around the stubbornly closed mirror portal. "The readings are _clearly_ showing signs of non-native dimensional particles on our end, but I can't lock onto an exterior source point! It's like something is interrupting the signal." She came back over to Jenn and set the helmet back on her head, magically manipulating parts of the wiring while scribbling something on a clipboard. Jenn felt a little envious of how easy magic made multitasking.

"Perhaps you should take a break, Darling," Rarity suggested gently, wading over through the sheaves of paper print-outs littering the floor. "You're beginning to look a little worse for wear."

Twilight made a " _Pfffff"_ sound of dismissal, despite the fact that several strands of her mane were hanging in her face. "I'm fine. I won't _really_ get freaked out until we've gone twelve straight hours without any clear breakthroughs. _Then_ , oh-ho, _then_ you'll see what stress looks like!" She let out a shallow laugh, which died quickly when nobody else laughed with her.

"If'n it's anythin' like the time she thought she was overdue for a letter to Princess Celestia, I don't wanna be around then," Applejack murmured. Rainbow Dash made an agreeing hum as she hovered lazily by, flying on her back as only a magically-gravity-defying creature can.

Jenn cleared her throat. It felt ridiculous to make suggestions about the use of magic to a genius pony princess from a highly fluorescent TV show, but what could it hurt? "Um, Twilight? What about that Energy Particle device thing you were using in the council room? Is that any help?"

The device in question flew through the air on a wave of purple magic, coming to a floating stop in front of Twilight's squinting eyes. "Yes, it's providing me with the data on your foreign dimensional particles. But it seems to be having the same problem as my particle translation device." Twilight looked up then, and saw the roomful of slightly impatient stares. realize. She heaved a sigh and then trotted back over to stand next to the mirror, pointing at various parts as she explained what she was trying to do.

"You all – except maybe you, Jenn – remember how I used this device to create a stable portal to Canterlot High's world using the preexisting spell in Sunset Shimmer's journal?" Everypony nodded, looking at the uppermost point on the mirror where Twilight's copy of that magical journal usually floated. It had been removed for this experiment, and now wires and cables snaked down from that access point, most of them leading to the colander on Jenn's head. "That is an example of Multiverse Connectivity – connecting two separate universes through a common link, which in that case was a pre-existing spell that linked two items across the dimensional divide. The mirror already provides the basic spell for connecting the universes in the first place; I'm just trying to change the search parameters so it will know we're trying to find a different universe!" Twilight caused the device in her magic to wave back in forth theatrically. "My Cross-Particle Energy Reader _is_ picking up on foreign dimensional particles that came through with Jenn, so I theorized that I could use those readings to give the portal something to look for. Theoretically, if the spell can lock onto another spell across dimensions, it should be able to do the same thing by finding a dimension full of the same particles Jenn has and connecting them to form a new portal!"

"So you're saying the machine is looking at the weird particles on me," Jenn repeated slowly, restating to make sure she understood, "and is looking for other, matching particles out there in all the universes so it can show you where to point the portal?"

"Exactly!" Twilight exclaimed, looking pleased. Her pleasure faded quickly back into frustration, though. "But it's not working. I thought it would be easy, but Starswirl's original portal spell is amazingly complex, and changing it to locate a completely different substance and lock onto a new location is harder than I thought. I keep getting these weird feedback loops, like the portal is trying to turn in on itself."

"Now hold on," Applejack put in, frowning in thought as she studied the mirror. "If'n you go changin' which world the portal points to, d'ya risk losin' your link to Canterlot High? I thought you said once that there's a whole lotta worlds out there."

Twilight shook her head, looking much more confident in her answer to this question. "No, if my plan works, it will be simple to redirect the portal back to Canterlot High; I'd just have to put the journal back in as the source point, and it will snap back into place. Right now, the real challenge is finding the world _Jenn_ is from, because the portal has never connected to that one."

Jenn rubbed her eyes, trying to massage away the numb feeling in her brain. "So…what does that mean for getting me home?" she asked, hoping she'd sort of understand Twilight's answer.

"It means we keep trying," Twilight said stubbornly, and her horn erupted in more pink magic that began rapidly reassembling parts. "I've at least figured out how to jump the portal to a new location; the trick now is giving the mirror a clear trail to follow, which means I need to find out why your dimensional particles aren't doing the job."

 _That sounds complicated,_ Jenn didn't say out loud, because it would be stating the obvious, and she didn't want to look like an idiot. Math and science stuff had always been a little harder for her to wrap her brain around, and apparently, adding _magical_ science to the mix did not help. Her brain felt foggy just trying to keep up.

Still, it was encouraging to see someone so dedicated to getting her home. That helped her calm down a little. And to realize that she had another problem to deal with.

Twilight was calling out orders now, sending the others into motion. "Rainbow Dash, see if you can hunt down Spike and ask him to bring two of those conductor cables instead of one. Applejack, can you look in the library for a book on thaumatergical wavelength studies? It should be in Section A-B17.335, it has a green cover with bright blue lightning bolts on the spine, you can't miss it. Rarity, this'll sound strange, but I could really use a bolt of that purple silk you had in your work room last week—"

"Um, Twilight?"

The purple alicorn swung to face her, staring with the focused intensity of someone who is thinking about something else very hard. "Yes?"

"Uh, sorry to interrupt, but…" She felt her pony ears tip down in embarrassment. "Can you tell me where the little pony's room is…?"

Somepony in the room giggled, and was elbowed into silence. Twilight's intensity faded a little as she smiled in understanding. "Of course. Spike, can you—?" She stopped, apparently remembering that she'd sent Spike, and now everyone else, off running on errands. "Orrr…here, this will show you the way." Twilight lit her horn with a pinkish glow and touched it to Jenn's head. The black pony felt a slight shiver run over her skin, and then a faint purple light appeared and began slowly travelling towards the exit. "There! Follow that, and it'll take you right to the restrooms."

Jenn was already halfway out the door. "Thanks a ton! I'll try to be quick!" she called back, her voice echoing and fading away in the cavernous crystal hallway.

Being out of that room for a while was a relief unto itself; sitting around and being patient had never been her strong suits. As Jenn trotted after Twilight's spell, she couldn't help but goggle all over again at the gorgeous crystal castle (not to mention the _magical light ball_ ). It was probably a good thing that the guiding spell stayed within three feet of her, so she couldn't lose it while she was distracted.

"Well, here I am. In the My Little Pony world. As a pony. Hopefully for real and not because my mind has finally snapped." Sometimes talking out loud helped, although she was also enjoying how her voice echoed on the high ceilings. "All in all, this could be going a lot worse," she added, trying to be upbeat. Despite her initial panic, she'd had enough presence of mind to make up a handful – hoofful? – of rules for herself before arriving on Twilight's doorstep. Rule Number One: avoid telling the ponies that their world was a supposedly-fictional TV show. A good rule, except she hadn't considered how that would mesh with explaining why she knew about Twilight's existence. _That_ had led to more yelling and accusations of espionage than she ever wanted to hear again in her life. Jenn made an amendment to Rule Number One while staring at the floor: don't tell people they are from a fictional TV show, OR that you know things no normal pony would know without being a spy or a stalker.

She was pretty proud of the explanation she'd come up with to cover her slip; it wasn't a lie, and it sounded saner than the detailed truth. It fit well with Rule Number Two: be as honest as possible. Not that she was prone to lying, anyway, but there were enough fanfictions covering this sort of thing to make it clear that she wasn't going to get far if she fiddle-farted around with no clue what she was doing. Those two rules were all she'd come up with, but despite some awkwardness, it was working out well so far. Probably more would pop up as she went, hopefully before she broke her or somebody else's brain.

With that less than encouraging thought on her mind, Jenn sent a little prayer for sanity and calm nerves heavenward. Then she focused her attention back on her most current and pressing need, which involved following a bobbing, magical spell to the restrooms.

There's a good reason why they don't discuss how the ponies in the aforementioned television show use the restroom, and it's the same reason why it won't be discussed here. Let it be said only that it wasn't actually that different. The hardest part was figuring out how to work the sink, and Jenn was so involved in maneuvering her black-coated hooves around the shiny silver handles that she didn't realize she was no longer the only person in the room.

"Really, is it too much to ask that you ladies put the toilet seat up oncein a while?"

" _AAAAAAAIIIIIEEEEE!"_

Discord rung a finger in his ear as he stared up at the unicorn clinging from a light fixture in a rictus of panic. "If you haven't discovered your special talent yet, my dear, I would venture it has something to do with shattering glass with sound waves," he said dryly.

" _What are you doing in here?!"_ Jenn screeched.

"What, the Lord of Chaos can't use the facilities?"

"This is the _ladies' room!_ "

Discord tilted his serpentine neck back in an upside-down U, giving the door Jenn had entered a thoughtful study. "Is it? You're sure?"

Jenn paused for a long moment, gripped in the paralyzing fist of uncertainty.

"You look to be a smidge stuck." Discord was quite abruptly at her level, which, considering she currently hung upside down from a light fixture, was a little disconcerting. Jenn glanced down (up?) at the floor and realized the cartoon-physics-level height that she'd just jumped.

"Well you kind of snuck up on me and _freaked me the crap out_ ," she snapped, clutching the light fixture tightly. "Is defying gravity common in Equestria? Also if this _isn't_ the ladies' room, Twilight's magical guide over there," she tilted her head towards the hovering ball of purple light by the door, "needs to be fired, and while we're on the subject, would you mind helping me down, please?" Maybe she could have worded that last request more politely, but she was a little focused on her current height off the ground.

Discord's bright yellow eyes widened with mock regret. (Oh yes, Jenn could _feel_ the "mock" in there.) "My dearlady, it would behoove me to help a pony I've so unfortunately distressed." Jenn wasn't really that surprised when the hoof on Discord's left hind goat leg literally popped off and bounced across the tiles like a rubber ball. "Will this do the trick?" The loony ex-villain folded his body into the shape of a staircase that led down to the floor. After a moment of considering how weird it would be to walk on stairs that were actually a person, Jenn decided that this was the least weird part of her day, and soon she was back on the bathroom tile.

While Discord remolded himself into his normal discordant shape, Jenn took a long moment to stare at the draconequees. Now that she was feeling less panicked from a combination of being snuck up on and finding a guy in the girls' restroom, she could fully appreciate the fact that standing in front of her was Discord: that loopy, kind of entertaining, somewhat emotionally unstable chaos master who used to be a villain and now showed up once in a while, apparently trying to be a good guy. He looked even more discombobulated in person, with all of those mismatched animal parts that somehow worked together to form his body. And he had a smug look on his face, like he knew something she didn't. It was all a little unnerving…and, well, kind of interesting.

 _Well, it wouldn't hurt to be cordial_ , Jenn decided, and put on her best smile. _Plus, hey, maybe he can help Twilight figure out how to get me home._ "Sorry about yelling. Thanks for your help. I'm Jenn. I'm…visiting." After the confusion with Twilight, maybe it would be a good idea to not pour out her entire weird story the second she met people in this world. She'd call that Rule Number Three.

Discord waved her off, smiling indulgently (which is a really irritating way to smile at somebody, just saying). "I shan't hold it against you. Myself, I was just popping by to say hello to my _dear_ friend, Princess Twilight Sparkle. We're quite close, you know." His uneven eyes widened innocently. "I heard that there might be a little bit of a situation!"

"Oh, hey! That could be really helpful. I'm kind of the reason for the situation," Jenn said with a nervous giggle. She glanced around at their present location. Yup, still (as best as she could tell) the mare's room. "Soooo um, out of curiosity: if you're here to see _them,_ what brought you in _here?_ "

"Well, when a guy eats certain spicy dishes for lunch, he eventually—"

Jenn waved a hoof in a rapid erasure. "No, I mean what are you doing _in the ladies' room?_ Did Twilight send you to find me, or do you just…I don't know, usually walk into restrooms for the opposite gender? I mean, I know you're Discord and everything, but come on. Boundaries."

At this, Discord smugly drew to his full height, suddenly wearing a nice suit with a VIP badge. He raised a bushy white eyebrow. "Excuse _me,_ Miss 'River', but while _you_ are obviously new here, _I_ happen to be Discord: esteemed friend of the Elements of Harmony, not to mention personal confidant of the Element of Kindness, an official Cutie Mark Crusader, _and_ Inter-Dimensional Pie Contest Judge Supreme. I'm sure that, of the two of us, I have greater visitation rights and bathroom privileges in this particular castle than one little lost _human_."

Jenn's eyes narrowed, partly from annoyance at his snarky attitude, and partly because little alarm bells were going off in her head. "I didn't get around to telling you I'm a human yet." She narrowed her eyes further. "And I said my name was _Jenn_ , not _River_."

"Really? My mistake. I probably determined it from your highly thematic cutie mark design," Discord said casually, poofing from the spot where he'd been standing and reappearing near Jenn's flank to investigate the mechanical pencil/river-themed mark. She resisted the urge to horse-kick him out of her Personal Space Bubble, but only barely. "Really, if you're going to blend in around here, it wouldn't hurt to take a less conspicuous name for a while."

She noted that for later. "And the 'human' part?"

He hand-waved this. "I'm sure I simply overheard that when I passed by the lab on the way here."

Jenn chewed her lip, still eyeing him warily. That…maybe made sense. She felt like she'd missed something, though. _Stop being paranoid,_ she scolded herself. Discord was a good guy now! Okay, he was still _learning_ how to be a good guy, if the show was any gauge, but that was beside the point. Jenn plunked her hindquarters on the tile floor and rubbed her head, grimacing when she accidentally bonked the horn poking through her hair. "Okay, fine. Sorry if I'm being a grump. It's been a weird day and I get testy when I'm stressed out." She took a deep breath and mustered what she hoped was a nice smile. "Let's start over. You already picked up the bit about me being a human in a pony body, so at least we can skip that part! Are you here to help Twilight figure out how to send me home?" _He knows how to open portals to other dimensions, right? I'm sure I remember something like that happening._

"Oh, I'm sure Twilight doesn't need _little old me_ to help with a big magical friendship problem like _that_ ," Discord said cheerfully. "But of course I'll offer my meager services." In an unexpected scene change, Jenn suddenly found herself sitting at a small wooden dining set, set with tea, across from Discord. The gray-headed draconequus leaned on the table with a look of fascination. (Yes, the whole set-up was still in the restroom.) "First things first, though! How are you liking your little soiree in Equestria, my dear?"

"It's, uh…I mean, it's pretty cool." Jenn shrugged uneasily, trying to figure out how to sit without bending her tail the wrong way. "I'd be more relaxed if I knew I had a reliable way of getting _home._ Speaking of which, I probably better get back—"

"What, you don't like it here?" Discord put a lion paw to his heart, adopting a wounded look. "Is our colorful dimension not exciting enough for you?"

Jenn frowned at him. "That's not it. If _you_ were just ripped out of your home unexpectedly, not to mention one that—" She stopped short. No, no, Rule Number One. "Uh, not to mention being turned into a different species, wouldn't you be freaked out?"

Discord thought this over, leaning back in his chair while the teacup in his hand added sugar to itself. "Hmmm, _well_ , it's not exactly a problem _I_ have to deal with on a regular basis," he said. There was that touch of smug again; she couldn't decide if it was normal for him, or if he was being snarky because she'd yelled at him earlier. A second later, though, Discord's bushy white eyebrows dipped thoughtfully. Those yellow and red eyes studied her up and down, as if trying to figure out an unusual puzzle. "Personally, though, I'm surprised that you came _here_. A whole new world at your hooftips, and you go running for help? I won't say it's not _practical_ , but don't you types normally like to wander around a bit, take in the sights and such before you go on your grand quest to get home or whatever?"

"Well, sure, if this happened to _some_ people, they'd probably—" Jenn's mouth clapped shut as his words caught up to her. There were those alarm bells again! "Are you saying this has actually happened to _other people?_ I thought this sort of thing only happened in fanfiction! How many of us are there?!"

Discord's guffaw echoed loudly in the porcelain acoustics of the restroom. "You say that as if you aren't sitting _right here!_ Oh, it's too rich! To answer your question, my dear, you're the only one in town that _I'm_ aware of at the moment. But the occasional visitor from another dimension pops in more often than dear Twilight realizes."

Jenn felt a little thrill of excitement and leaned forward. "If you know so much about interdimensional travel, do you know how to send me home? I'd be happy not to have to waste more of Twilight's time." That reminded Jenn of just how long she'd been gone. She stood quickly and began working her way around the space-hogging tea table. "Speaking of which, we should _really_ be getting back, I don't want Twilight to think I've run off—"

"Oh, certainly!" Discord poofed the table out of existence and stood. Jenn could hear his mismatched feet tapping on the floor as he followed her, still talking in a casual tone. "It's really a shame that you plan to run off so quickly, though. And to say you aren't happy being in that lovely pony body! One might think that anypony would be pleased to try out something of their own design…"

Jenn stopped, one hoof hovering in the air. Those alarm bells from earlier? Yeah, they were going full Defcon One now. All of the pieces, the little hints and jabs, fell into place like a magical self-ordering puzzle.

Slowly, the black-coated, blue-maned unicorn turned on her hoof, blue eyes narrowing to slits.

"YOU did this to me," she hissed.

Discord smirked, lounging backwards in midair with his arms comfortably folded behind his head. "Took you long enough, 'River Babble'."

"What—! How— W—" Jenn sputtered a full thirty seconds before something intelligible came out. " _Why?!_ "

Discord shrugged, radiating full smug by this point. "You're the oh-so-smart writer who gets _everyone_ in character, aren't you? YOU figure it out."

"Writer? This has something to do with my writing? But what did—" Her eyes widened. "Oh my word, is this about that My Little Pony fanfiction I'm working on?" The ridiculous truth slammed her in the face. "Does this have something to do with what I wrote about _you?_ "

Discord sniffed, rolling his eyes up to look at the ceiling. "It's entirely possible that you're getting warmer."

"Oh my freaking word." Jenn put a hoof to her head, mind racing. "W…wait, wait, clear something up for me here." A terrible thought had entered her head. If the _show_ was real, then that meant that the writers of the show were writing about real events. And if _that_ was true, and Discord knew about the story _she'd_ been writing… "Are the things I write _real?_ " Jenn sucked in a harsh breath. "Am I…am I _making things happen to real people?!_ "

For a little context, it is important to note that in certain internet social circles where Jenn spent a great deal of time, there was a popular headcanon among many authors, writers, creators, and otherwise imaginative people. The theory was that, somewhere, somehow, in some other dimension or universe, the events and characters someone wrote about came into existence, unfolding exactly how the writer dictated. That the writer was, in fact, almost god-like in their ability to affect the lives of these characters they had created.

While this theory was popular by some, it was _not_ Jenn's favorite theory by a long shot. Several choice events she had written or was planning to write about bounced through her head and made sent a sick feeling in her stomach – including the one Discord was talking about. The scene involved Discord being confronted with a super-powerful creature of dark magic whom he had made a deal with centuries ago, and finding out what a bad idea making a deal with a super-powerful creature of dark magic really was. It was going to lead into all sorts of important plot development with the main characters trying to stop the creature of dark magic, and Discord trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to hinder it from his captured position. It was _important to the story_ , even though it did not, in fact, offer a flattering view of Discord's strength.

But if she was actually creating real-life events… If she were somehow responsible for _hurting_ people…

Discord's guffaw bounced around the bathroom again, breaking Jenn out of her frantic circle of worrying. "Don't flatter yourself, my dear! None of that drivel has actually happened. Whatever the humans who make that silly TV show adaptation have got, I assure you that _you_ don't have it." He narrowed his eyes. "That doesn't excuse your portraying me in such an unflattering light, of course. Making it out like I, the Lord of Chaos, could be overpowered so easily. It's insulting!" He sniffed dramatically.

Intense relief flooded Jenn. She hadn't hurt anyone… But, with the release of the fear came a fresh flood of indignant rage. "You did this over something that's not even—? That's insane!" Jenn exclaimed. "I haven't even posted it online yet! It'll be ages until I do, and for crying out loud, I am pretty sure my story is far from _the worst thing ever written about you!_ I mean have you even SEEN half of the shipping fics that exist?!" She was waving her hooves by this point. "At least in _my_ story, you were going to come out a way better person by the end of everything!" Her volume rose with her anger, so Jenn was fully maxed out by the time she pointed a hoof at herself and shrieked, "Are you really telling me that you _yanked me out of my home_ and _mutated_ me because you were _mildly insulted?!_ "

Discord shrugged, showing no concern at all for her full-on rant. He even smirked. "That, and it's a fun prank to pull."

"Oh my _word_." Jenn flung a hoof in the air, rolling her eyes. Some thought in the back of her mind – that little one linked to her sense of survival – quietly questioned if yelling at a super-powered magical creature of chaos was either smart or safe. Angry rants rarely run on rational thought, though, so it was ignored. Jenn marched up to Discord and reared up on her back legs so that she could plant a hoof as high up his chest as possible. "Send. Me back. Now," she growled.

"Well, that's no fun." Discord tut-tutted, waving an eagle talon back and forth in her face. "You've only just gotten here! I'd hardly be doing you a favor by sending you back so _soon._ "

"Listen, dude, I've got family and friends who'll worry about me, not to mention a _job._ And I _shouldn't be here._ So unless you convince me I'll be sent back to the exact time and place that I left, I'm in a bit of a hurry!"

"Oh, River Babble, don't get yourself tied up in a knot!" The draconequus giggled as his serpentine body jumbled into an impossible tangle. "Learn to have some fun! You'll certainly have some time to, since you," he tapped her playfully on the nose, "are going to be a pony for a good little while yet."

Jenn narrowed her eyes. "So you're not going to send me home?"

"Let me think about it…mmmno."

She turned on her hoof and marched out the door. "Then I'm telling Twilight!"

Discord blinked, jaw dropping open as the door swung shut in his face. "Wha—!" He poofed out of the restroom, reappearing in front of Jenn and wearing a scandalized look. "Are you _seriously_ going to _tattle_ on me? How _old_ are you?"

"Oh, don't give me that," Jenn snorted, skirting around him and trotting faster down the hall. The purple spell Twilight had sent with her guided the way back towards where the Elements of Harmony would be. "'Tattling' is what bullies accuse little elementary school kids of doing so they won't tell the teacher that the bullies are being _jerks!_ "

"Jerk, wellll, that's a bit of a harsh term," Discord protested, floating faster to keep up with her. "Maybe you just need to learn to take a joke!" He frowned after her as she kept marching. "What makes you think they'll believe you over me, anyway?"

"Oh, so you're going to lie to them! What a great friend you are!" Jenn grated, marching right on. The concern in Discord's voice began to sink in. Discord was worried! He didn't _want_ her to tell Twilight! Jenn paused long enough to point a hoof at him. "I know why you came here. You weren't expecting me to spill the beans to Twilight first thing! You're hoping to run me off before she can find a way to send me home, to prolong your little joke!" She set off trotting again, feeling a hot surge of satisfaction. "Well, forget it, Discord. I'm not playing your stupid game!"

In another poof of smoke, Discord appeared so directly in front of Jenn that she smacked her nose into him. He was scowling down at her. "Look, Miss Priss, I was going to send you back _eventually_ ," he muttered, glancing around as if he was afraid somepony would overhear. "But if you go whining to Twilight, I definitely _won't_ be in a charitable mood for helping you out!"

"Too bad." Jenn skirted him again, hopping over his red, tufted tail. "I guess I'm just back at Plan A. I bet Twilight will figure it out faster than _you_ would take sending me home!" Boiling mad and running on a granite-hard stubborn streak, there was no stopping her now.

Discord, for whatever reason, wasn't using any truly forceful means to stop her, even though he obviously could. Maybe he was conscious enough of what being a good guy meant to know that that would be taking things too far. Of course, his moral compass was obviously still skewed a bit, if _this_ was his idea of a prank. The draconequus appeared in front of her again, this time forming a brick barricade and wearing a comical green military outfit. "Hold up _just_ a minute!" he ordered. Jenn ignored him and walked up to the wall, searching for a way through.

Discord jogged over to her, his face sour. "Fine, if you're going to be all high and mighty, I'll have to pull out the big guns." He leaned close to her, eyebrow waggling. "You didn't happen to see anything come through _with_ you, did you?"

Jenn slowed just a little. The question sank down through her bubble of liquid anger, settling into her brain. She glanced sideways at him. "There wasn't anything around me when I woke up…" Was there? She tried to think.

With a flourish of his hand, Discord conjured a little bubble in his talon. Inside of the bubble, as if seen through a fuzzy television screen, sat a rectangular, blue device. Jenn's eyes widened in disbelief. "Is that my 3DS? You brought some of my _stuff?_ "

That smug grin was reasserting dominance on Discord's face. He observed the bubble, twisting it back and forth. "It might be. Oh, I don't have it _here_ , of course; who knows where it's gone off to. I'd imagine you'd want to look for it so you don't _leave_ it here, though."

Jenn turned this over in her mind for a moment. Yes, that would be a shame – she really liked that 3DS, even if it did have a broken hinge. And which game did it have plugged into it right now? Was she at risk of losing her hard-earned Pokedex collection?!

She suddenly realized what he was doing. With a growl, Jenn turned back to the brick wall blocking her way, found an urn against the wall, and clumsily scrambled over it, hopping down on the other side. She was _not_ going to let him have his way that easily!

Discord was immediately after her, calling out a list of items that only fueled Jenn's angry sense of purpose.

"Wait! Seriously? You're just going to leave that?"

"It's replaceable and I probably play it too much, anyway!"

"What about your phone?"

 _That_ one hurt. "It'll probably turn up!"

"Your wallet?"

"Pretty sure no _ponies_ are going to steal my credit cards or my identity!"

"Well, if you don't care about _those_ things, I suppose you aren't worried about _Chewie."_

This time, Jenn stopped dead. Not just her body, either – her whole brain came to a screeching, grinding halt. Slowly, with the same gravity but much more mounting horror than back at the restroom, Jenn turned, stared at Discord, and asked him exactly what he was implying.

With a face entirely full of smug, he told her.

" _You. Did. WHAT?!"_

.

* * *

.

Twilight stopped in the middle of her explanation of one of the parts of the attachment she was constructing. Her horn was pinging. A worried line crossed the alicorn's face.

"What's up, Twilight?" Spike asked, setting down a large bundle of wiring.

"Something's wrong. My spell is supposed to bring Jenn straight back here. But it's getting out of range!" She flared her wings, signaling Rainbow Dash to follow her. "Come on, we need to check on her!"

They zoomed out, buzzing over the heads of the finally returning Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. The pink-and-yellow pegasus was brimming with happiness as she stepped over the threshold. "Girls, you'll never believe what I—"

"No time, Fluttershy!" Twilight yelled, as she and Rainbow Dash bolted down the hall.

Twilight's stomach continued to sink as the spell led her further and further down the halls. They stopped at the restroom, which was empty. (Rainbow asked a random question about how Twilight had gotten hoofmarks on the ceiling, but Twilight ignored it.) They continued to follow the ping of Twilight's horn, until at last, they landed at the door of the castle – and Twilight's fears were confirmed.

"She's left the castle! She's _gone!_ "


	3. In Which The Hunt Is On

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash hurried back to the laboratory. The others were huddled around Fluttershy, who was speaking in soft, excited tones. "Girls, we need to go out and find Jenn. She's left the castle for some reason," Twilight burst out, worry tugging at her stomach.

Applejack leaned around Fluttershy, looking concerned. "That sounds kinda suspicious, Twalight. You sure she ain't just wandered off to another part o' the castle?"

"Yes. That guiding spell I gave her is also supposed to track her and keep me updated on her location." The purple alicorn scowled as everypony gave her identical looks of surprise. "What? I'm not [i]that[/i] oblivious! I knew there was a risk she wasn't completely above board." Twilight sighed, wings wilting at her sides. "I really hoped she was, though. She sounded so sincere…"

"Well, don't give up yet, Twilight!" Pinkie Pie sang, bouncing over to her friend. "There could tooootally be another explanation! Like maybe she realized that something important from back home came through with her and she's off to find it so it doesn't get lost in our world forever!"

Rainbow Dash did an upside-down loop overhead, squinting doubtfully. "I dunno, maybe. She [i]did [/i]sound pretty legit. And I was really looking forward to fighting some crazy monsters from another dimension."

Twilight shook her head, lips pursed in thought. "I hope so. It's either that, or she was sent to spy specifically on how the mirror works. That doesn't explain the odd readings I was getting, though—"

She had been reaching her hoof towards the Dimensional Cross-Particle Energy Reader as she spoke, not noticing how it was vibrating visibly. As soon as Twilight touched it with her hoof, it gave off a deafening trumpet sound. Everypony flung their hooves to their ears.

"What?" Twilight stared at the device in shock. The earbleedingly loud trumpet toots continued as Twilight twiddled with her device, yelling to be heard. "I don't believe it! This looks promising, girls! That sound means the Energy Reader has confirmed that a significant number of cross-dimensional photons are irradiating this area from a recently present source!"

"WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?" Rarity shouted back. "AND COULD YOU [i]PLEASE [/i]BE A DEAR AND TURN THAT OFF?"

The noise cut out with a sad toodle as Twilight finished typing something into the front interface. She stood grinning hugely at her deafened friends. "It means," she said triumphantly, "that one way or another, Jenn is [i]definitely [/i]from some other world!

There were a few relieved and understanding nods. Then a quiet, rather puzzled voice spoke up.

"That sounds nice. Um, what are we talking about?"

Fluttershy stood in the center of the group, wearing the most polite look of complete confusion every invented. Everypony exchanged sheepish grins. "Sorry, Fluttershy, you missed quite a bit while you were out," Rarity offered. "Suffice it to say that Twilight has had a rather interesting visitor, who may in fact be from another world entirely. She's gone missing, though, and we aren't at all sure why."

"Where were you, anyway?" Rainbow Dash demanded, folding her hooves. "I looked all over for you before flying over here to catch up with the others!"

"Oh! Well, you see, I was out walking and I ran into just the most adorable little—"

"No time for that now," Twilight declared. "Sorry, Fluttershy, but you'll have to tell us later. We need to track down Jenn. I don't know why she's run off, but if she [i]is[/i] a visitor from another world, I need her here to find out why her dimensional particles are sending me such mixed signals. Plus, I mean, we can't just have her wandering around town. Who knows what kinds of problems could come up if we leave a visitor from another dimension wandering willy-nilly around Ponyville?"

"Yeah," Spike said thoughtfully, tapping a claw on his chin, "I can't [i]imagine [/i]what kinds of crazy antics [i]that [/i]could cause." He met Twilight's suspicious look with all the innocence of a baby angel.

"Well, then, let's get to it!" Applejack said, stepping forward with a face full of determination. "You said you can track her, Twi?"

In answer, Twilight Sparkle revved up the magic in her horn. Carefully forming the spell in her mind, she cast it, and a larger, brighter purple sphere of light appeared in the air. She pointed at it, then out the door. "Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie, you all follow this sphere; it'll lead you towards the one that I linked to Jenn. Hopefully she was right, and nothing dangerous has followed her through whatever portal she came through into this world; but you can contact me with that sphere if anything comes up!" Twilight was already at the mirror machine, punching data into a panel at its side as she continued. "Fluttershy, you stay with me so I can catch you up on what's going on and because I could use the extra sets of hooves. And I'll work on calibrating the mirror to lock onto the energy readings I gathered with my Energy Reader. If all goes well, we could have this portal ready to go by sunset!"

"So what I'm hearin' is, we should tryta get her back here afore the sun goes down." Applejack tipped her hat. "We're on it, Twalight!"

"Whoopee!" Pinkie Pie was already bouncing out the door after the purple sphere. "Let's get Ponyville's first pony/human hide-and-seek party on the road!"

The Lord of Chaos was [i]not [/i]having a good day. Discord reappeared in his home dimension and stormed (with literal storm clouds) back into his house, walking through the closed door and slamming it open violently behind him. With a growl, he sat on the empty air next to his recliner and kicked back, conjuring up a viewing spell so he could start trying to salvage this mess.

Of all of the inter-dimensional travelers he's encountered/made, this one was by far the brattiest, no two ways about it. Threatening to tell on him to Twilight, as if he'd actually done something wrong! There were no rules in any universe against transporting a person unexpectedly to a neighboring universe that [i]he [/i]was aware of (except for the one with the ducks, but he avoided that place on principle).

"Still," he muttered begrudgingly, "Twilight [i]does [/i]have a way of blowing everything out of proportion." He should have just left the obstinate little twerp to Twilight Sparkle's ecstatically happy foray into magical science for a few days, but the idea of things being so easy for his newest project was simply unbearable. Only now he'd have his hands full keeping her away from Twilight and the gang so she wouldn't blab about his admittedly poorly-advised revelation concerning his involvement in the whole affair. It wasn't like he could just send her back, after all.

Discord spun the glowing ball on his palm, turning the viewscreen to look around Ponyville Square. Yep, there was the little black nuisance, running in a panic to try and find her lost Chewie. That had been a stroke of genius on his part, but Twilight and the others would no doubt be searching for their precious interdimensional visitor, and if little miss River Tattle gave up the search too quickly and returned to the castle, he'd be back where he'd started….

[i]The search. [/i]"Of course!" Discord exclaimed, an actual lightbulb appearing above his head as the pieces of an idea fell into place. With a snap, he made the viewing spell vanish, and stood from his invisible recliner with a stretch of his serpentine spine. "I don't know why I ever bother doubting myself," he said with a chuckle, and, closing the door again, he walked through it and back out into normal time and space.

The ponies of Ponyville had, it went without saying, gotten used to extremely weird things interrupting their daily lives. It was almost a sport for some, guessing what kind of catastrophe would strike next, and when. (The boys on the bowling team were betting hard on a pack of timberwolves led by an evil unicorn mage from the Everfree Forest, no later than March.) So when a frazzled and unfamiliar (but still perfectly normal-looking) unicorn went galloping through town square early that morning, disappeared into Twilight's castle, and then came galloping back a few hours later looking equally frazzled but less unfamiliar and now accompanied by a glowing purple orb of Twilight's magic, most ponies gave her only a passing glance.

A certain brown earth pony stallion gave her more than just a passing glance, but she was well out of hearing range by the time he yelled for her to come back.

After running pell-mell for several minutes in a mild state of panic (what else was new), Jenn skidded to a stop at an intersection, looking frantically in all directions. "Where is it?!" she moaned. "The show does [i]not [/i]give a good enough idea of the layout of this place!" The problem with running in a panic, she noted sourly, was that it did awful things to a person's sense of direction. Now she couldn't for the life of her remember which was she'd come from or, by extension, how to find the field in which she'd woken up a few hours ago.

Her pause also had the unfortunate side effect of giving space for the depression to land. Jenn groaned again and sat on her rump, rubbing her temples with her hooves. "Probably won't even be there if I [i]do[/i] find it," she muttered. "Chewie could be [i]anywhere[/i]." It was the Chip incident all over again, except this time it wasn't even her fault, which made the whole thing worse somehow. Jenn spent several minutes like this, wallowing in self-pity on a public street and in general not accomplishing anything useful, which is usually what happens when one wallows in self-pity for any length of time.

"Excuse me? Miss? Do you need help?"

Jenn jolted and spun, locking eyes on the person who had unintentionally scared her half out of her wits. Three young ponies stood in front of her, wearing matching looks of concern: a pale white unicorn with pink-and-purple hair, an orange pegasus with a mane of deep pink, and a yellow earth pony with a bow on her bright red tail. The three bore matching cutie marks in the shape of a shield.

A grin sprang onto Jenn's face, her depression momentarily obfuscated by delight. "Oh, it's you guys! Hi!"

The looks of concern turned to looks of confusion as the Cutie Mark Crusaders exchanged glances. "Do we know you?" Sweetie Belle asked cautiously, adding the question to her original three.

Jenn wanted to slap herself. [i]Rule Number One![/i] "Um, no, but I kind of know you, sort of," she stammered, thinking quickly. "I've, uh, met your sisters. Recently. This morning. With Twilight."

Apple Bloom's face broke into a proud grin. "Oh, I gotcha! You must be in town helpin' Princess Twalight with a friendship mission! That explains the purple glowy thing." River was suddenly quite grateful for the little ball of purple energy that had insisted on following her this whole way. Apple Bloom stuck out her hoof, which Jenn reflexively shook. "Well, you already know us, but Granny says it's polite to introduce yerself at first meetin's. Ah'm Apple Bloom, this is Sweetie Belle, and that's Schootaloo, and we're the Cutie Mark Crusaders!" All three puffed up proudly at their club name, which made Jenn grin. Kids were cute in any dimension.

A few seconds of awkward pause passed before Scootaloo prompted, "And you are…?"

Jenn blushed. "Oh, right! I'm…" Another pause as she glanced back at the B-shaped cutie mark on her flank, and then mentally sighed. [i]Oh, why fight it.[/i] "You can call me River Babble," she finished, adding Rule Number Four to her list. "Or just River is fine. Nice to meet you." Clearing her throat, she quickly tried to change the subject. "Maybe you can help me! I'm looking for a field I was in a few hours ago. It, uh." She thought hard for a moment. "It has a tree in one of the corners, next to a pond or something. I was in kind of a hurry, but I need to find it!"

"That's…not a lot to go on," Scootaloo said cautiously.

Jenn (who will now be referred to mainly as River to make things easier for everyone) heaved a sigh. "I know, my memory is crap. It was…over in that direction, I think?" she offered, indicating the street with her hoof.

Apple Bloom perked right up. "Oh, Ah bet Ah know where it is! There's a li'l field like that on the corner of our farm!"

"It's worth checking out!" Sweetie Belle decided. "You just follow us Crusaders, ma'am!" And the three fillies bolted off down the street at top speed. River soon raced after them, waffling between gratitude at their helpfulness and sense of urgency, and irritation that even as a [i]horse[/i], she was out of shape.

They sped down a road that led away from Ponyville. Apple trees could already be seen in the near distance, and Jenn felt a little wellspring of hope reopen inside her chest. She huffed words around deep breaths as she tried to keep pace with the energetic kids. "Thanks, I think I lost something back there!"

"No problem!" Scootaloo called, grinning over her shoulder. "The Cutie Mark Crusaders are always ready to help a pony in need!"

"Is that what we do now?" Sweetie Belle asked, starting to sound a little winded herself. "I thought we were mostly helping with cutie marks?"

"Hey, helping people is helping people," Scootaloo said with a quick shrug between strides. "And maybe we'll help her find out something she didn't know about her cutie mark!" River privately doubted this, since she'd designed her cutie mark specifically for the talents she already knew she had, but she was touched by the thought.

Within minutes, they arrived at a field, the buildings and orchards of Sweet Apple Acres visible in the distance. River looked bleakly out over the grass, wondering where to even start. Chewie was going to be nearly impossible to find, but she had to at least try…

…Hang on. [i]Discord said he brought some of my other stuff through, too, right?[/i] If she looked for her wallet and things at the same time, maybe she'd get some results, especially since most of those items were distinctly more stationary than Chewie. The thought brought a little surge of hope. So long as she had a doable reason to keep searching, there was at least a [i]chance [/i]she'd find Chewie in the process!

"So what're ya lookin' for?" Apple Bloom sat down beside the currently deep-in-thought unicorn and looked around at the field they were standing in.

"A couple of things," River said distractedly as she began picking her way through the grass. "I'm not sure what all yet. Would you girls mind helping me look around, maybe just keep your eye out for anything unusual?" The idea of having extra help was even more encouraging, and it wasn't like the fillies could damage much, although the idea of what a hoof meeting her phone would do to the screen did make her wince.

"We can totally do that!" Scootaloo said, her eyes sparking with the challenge. "Come on, girls, Cutie Mark Crusaders Treasure Hunters!" There was a group cheer, and then the three fillies raced out into the grass, giggling and yelling half-baked ideas about forming search patterns. River grinned to herself as she went back to her search. Apparently the Cutie Mark Crusaders hadn't stopped looking for new skills to try just because they'd finally gotten their cutie marks.

The search continued on in this way for a good twenty minutes, which was about when her helpers' interests began to flag. River, feeling discouragement creeping in again, sat down for a moment to gather her thoughts. So far, there'd been no sign of anything unusual or even mildly interesting: no Chewie, no phone, no wallet, no whatever else Discord claimed he'd stolen when he kidnapped/dimension-hopped her. But then again, did she [i]know [/i]that Discord had really taken her things? Lying to get what he wanted seemed on par with his actions up to this point.

Another, more guilty thought entered her mind, and she turned a worried glance towards the pointy castle poking up over Ponyville. She'd run off without letting Twilight know where she was going… "Just like he wanted," River grumbled. Discord was probably thrilled right now, tricking her into abandoning the one pony who could help her get home while she went on this wild goose chase. Well, see how he liked it when she just trotted right back there! River stood up, back straight (horizontally, anyway), and scanned the field, opening her mouth to call the girls back in.

Something made her pause. River frowned, looking over the field more carefully now that she wasn't distracted by the search. It looked…wrong. There [i]was[/i] a tree over there, but… She racked her brain, mentally insulting her terrible memory. Hadn't it been on the [i]other [/i]side of the pond?

"Oh my word." River groaned, putting a hoof to her head as the obvious clues that had been in front of her the whole freaking time came together. "We're in the [i]wrong field.[/i]" They'd wasted all this time looking, and they weren't even in where—!

"Hey, Ah found somethin'!"

River turned to see Apple Bloom on the opposite side of the field, holding something small up in her hoof and waving it. It was impossible to tell what the thing could be from this distance, although considering her recent discovery, River was confident that it couldn't be anything of hers. Still, she trotted over to join the converging Cutie Mark Crusaders, who were already ooing and aahing over Apple Bloom's find.

"What is it?"

"Ah dunno, Ah've never seen anythin' like it."

"The glass part kind of reminds me of the lenses on those fancy cameras ponies bring to my sister's fashion shows, but it's too flat."

"What does – whoa! This little round mark lights it up! It must be magic!"

"What're all those numbers for?"

"See what happens if you poke them—"

Understanding crashed in, and River bolted the last few yards with a burst of adrenaline. "WAIT! Be careful with that!" She skidded in the grass, nearly falling on her face in front of Apple Bloom. "Let me see, let me see it!" River gasped.

Apple Bloom held the thing out to her. It looked too small in the filly's hoof, being meant for the delicate fingers of humans. A smile bloomed on River's face as she looked down at a familiar rectangle of metal and glass, wrapped protectively in a black rubber casing. "It's my phone!" She heaved a sigh of relief and reached for it. "I can't believe it! Where did you find it?"

"Your what now?" Scootaloo asked, eyeing the phone with confusion. "What's it for? Is it some kinda magic doohickey?" She ignored Sweetie Belle's exaggerated eye roll.

"It was just sittin' here in the grass," Apple Bloom explained. The filly looked puzzled when River's attempt to grab the phone knocked it to the grass; River blushed and bent down to grab it in her mouth, hoping desperately that her spit wasn't somehow going to get into the electronics and fry it.

"Thish ish grea'!" Man, it was hard to talk like that. She reversed her decision and set it down in the grass again. A few [i]very [/i]careful prods with the tip of her hoof entered the lock code, opening up her list of apps, and River let out a huge sigh of relief. "Awesome, still working. It's a phone, it lets two people talk to each other from far away. It's not really magic, per se, it's…uh…you know what, that's really hard to explain, let's save it for later. I'm just glad it's not broken…" She trailed off, several facts settling into her brain. River stared over at that pond with the tree on the wrong side again. "But...how the heck did it end up [i]here?[/i]"

This question naturally caused a great deal of confusion, and River had to explain how she had realized that they weren't even in the right field. That led to the girls pressing her for details about how exactly she "lost" her stuff, and River, being a painfully honest person anyway, had to struggle for an explanation that wouldn't completely shatter Rules One and Two. She'd already learned the consequences of the first one with Twilight, and she wasn't eager to break a few kids' brains.

"Okay, look…" Her eyes cut to the side as the girls all looked up with expectant faces. River let out a slow breath. "Let's just say that I, uh…met Discord…and, for reasons that will not be disclosed, he thought it would be funny to transport me here, along with some things that are important to me." She cast a disparaging eye at the field. "And apparently he thought scattering those things all over creation would add to the joke."

Apple Bloom nodded sagely. "Discord gets into all kinds o' trouble. Nothing really [i]bad[/i], though, not since he became a good guy!" She thought for a minute, pawing the grass. "Maybe if we ask nicely, he'll stop messing with you. He is an honorary Cutie Mark Crusader!"

"It doesn't sound like that's going to work this time, from what he says in this note." Everypony turned to see Sweetie Belle holding a crisp piece of parchment paper. She blushed. "Don't look at me like that! I just found it a second ago!"

The group gathered around Sweetie Belle and the note, River Babble taking it in her hoof. She noted with bemusement that she'd fully gained the knack for holding stuff in her hooves, which still made no sense even when she was looking straight at it. [i]More important things to worry about, focus![/i] River scanned the page, reading the words out loud with a steady decrease in enthusiasm.

[i]"River, my dear, you're just such a bore,

Turning adventure into a chore.

If you spend all your time only trying to leave

You'll miss out on all of the fun to achieve!

So let's play a game. You've had a head-start.

Prove to me that you're not just an old fart.

I'll give your things back. Just follow the clues.

And once you're all done, you can leave if you choose.

You think that you know about ponies so well?

You'll get your first clue when you cast your first spell.

P.S. I'll throw Chewie in too if you're a good sport and don't tell on me."[/i]

"Really? REALLY? Are you that bored? Did you steal this from a Dr. Seuss book?" River blurted. No answer came, although by now she was almost 100% positive that the conniving jerkface was watching her every move.

While the three girls took over the paper, trying to figure out the clue, River stared into the distance for a long time, trying to think. It sounded like, with this deal, Discord was willing to give all her stuff back and find Chewie. There wasn't anything in there about going home, but he'd sort of implied he'd do that, too, right? He was a jerk and she didn't trust him as far as she could throw him, but…

And then there was Twilight. River swallowed a lump of guilt, remembering Applejack's accusing questions and Twilight's decision to trust her. [i]I bet I look REAL trustworthy now, running off like that[/i], she thought uncomfortably. In fact, she had just been about to go back. Was that why this popped up right when it did? Was Discord [i]that [/i]worried about getting into trouble with Twilight? If he was really so concerned…it might mean he would keep his end of the bargain honestly. Twilight could probably get her home, but leaving her stuff behind – especially Chewie – would be freaking awful. And she didn't really [i]need [/i]to check back with Twilight…right?

She didn't like it. She didn't like any of it. But finally, River heaved a purposefully loud and exasperated sigh. "Al[i]right[/i], I will do your stupid scavenger hunt, you dingus," she yelled at the sky. "But you had better keep your end of the deal, [i]including Chewie[/i], or I'm marching straight back to Twilight and telling her everything, and you can [i]keep[/i] my stupid wallet!"

"What's a dingus?" Sweetie Belle whispered. Her friends shrugged.

Uncertainty tugged at her, but River shoved it back down, keeping her eyes focused on her phone. She could explain everything to Twilight later…somehow. And, well, maybe Discord had another point: she was kind of missing out on the coolness factor of [i]travelling to other worlds[/i] by focusing so much on freaking out and going home, right?[i] I mean, it'll probably take a few days one way or the other[/i], she reasoned. No more bothering Twilight, no more worrying about Chewie or going home; just a little adventure, and then everything would go back to normal!

"So where're we headin' first?" a voice piped up.

River turned a blank stare on Apple Bloom and her friends, who were looking up at her expectantly. "Huh? What do you… Do you mean you want to come along?"

"Well duh!" Scootaloo scoffed, her tiny wings buzzing with excitement. "Discord's scavenger hunts are the best!"

"We'll have your things tracked down in no time!" Sweetie Belle promised. She was already bounding with glee. "Go ahead, do the first thing! We already figured it out!"

"We [i]think[/i]," Apple Bloom corrected her. "The 'first' part doesn't totally make sense…"

"The first clue? Wait, let me read it again." River looked at the poem again, scanning the lines until she came to the bottom. "'You'll get your first clue when you cast your first spell.' What does [i]that [/i]mean?"

Three very blank stares looked up at her. River felt her eyes sliding to the side in the uncomfortable silence. "What?"

"Um…" Sweetie Belle rubbed one leg against the other, looking embarrassed. "Miss River, you, um…you do know you're a [i]unicorn[/i], right?"

River's eyes crossed as she looked up, just able to see the tip of her horn. "I'm…I'm a unicorn. Oh,[i] right![/i]" Sensing the deepening confusion of her young helpers, River let out an uneasy laugh. "Riiight, yeah, of course! Um…so, I guess I just have to…cast a spell?"

Several agreeing nods. A knot tightened River's stomach. "Um…any, uh…suggestions?" she stalled, hoping the extra few seconds would reveal some hint about what she was even supposed to do. Part of her felt a little giddy; she could do [i]magic! [/i]Real, fantastical, family-friendly unicorn magic like Twilight did. This would be really cool if she weren't completely positive she was about to blow her cover. The show always made it sound like it took years for young unicorns to learn how to use their magic, and she was supposed to just cast one out of the blue? [i]Thanks a million, Discord.[/i]

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom looked at Sweetie Belle, the resident unicorn of their club. Sweetie Belle was still eyeing River Babble with confusion, but she seemed eager to help. "It doesn't say what kind, so maybe…maybe a locator spell! I just learned one from Twilight last week!"

An idea came to River, and she brightened. "Great! I, uh, don't know any of those. Do you…do you think you could teach me?" she asked nervously.

Sweetie Belle's jaw went slack. "You don't…you want [i]me [/i]to teach [i]you [/i]a spell?" Slowly, her cheeks bunched in an unbelievably huge smile. "A grown-up unicorn wants to learn a spell from [i]me![/i] This is so cool!" After a few more bounces, she settled down and carefully arranged herself into a very serious pose (which looked stinking adorable). The pale unicorn tilted her horn down, mouth set in a firm line. "Okay, so here's what you do," Sweetie Belle commanded, doing her best Teacher Twilight Sparkle impression. "First, you draw a small quantity of magic into your horn, about the same as a really small Levitation spell. Then you think really hard about the thing you want to find. Let me know when you're ready!"

Gulping, River adopted a stance similar to Sweetie Belle's, and tried to focus inside herself, looking for any alien sensation that might be magic. She sent up a prayer, hoping for an epiphany. [i]Oh, Lord, please help me figure this out, I'm going to look like a complete idiot and have to explain everything and it will totally freak them out— [/i]She took another deep breath. [i]Focus. Focus. Wait, what's…? [/i]

She felt something, and then suddenly she was [i]very [/i]aware of her horn and the signals it sent through her brain. She focused on that, shutting off her other senses, and the signals became more and more clear. The magic was [i]everywhere[/i]: inside her, around her, in the girls, in the plants, flowing on streams of current like wind, hugging the grass like layers of snow. A thrill shot through her, and before she knew it, the brand-new unicorn had sucked a huge amount of that magic up into her horn.

Everything went very, very bright for a second, and then River was wobbling on her legs, feeling like she'd just been blasted in the face by a sonic boom. A distant ringing sound slowly formed into the sounds of three excited voices slowly growing louder.

"Red Delicious! Are you alright, Miss River?"

"That was [i]awesome![/i]"

"That wasn't supposed to happen, I promise! Do you feel okay? Miss River Babble?"

Slowly, River took a step, reestablishing her center of balance as the world came back into focus. The dazed feeling was fading, although she still had a doozy of a headache. "Wow…what…what did I do?" Her voice sounded a little slurry in her own ears. Maybe magic worked better in [i]small [/i]doses.

Sweetie Belle stood by her leg, her green eyes wide with anxiety. "I'm not sure, but it [i]looked [/i]like you cast an Illuminate spell and it went all wrong! I totally didn't mean for that to happen, I'm so sorry, I'm the worst teacher ever!

Shaking her head, River looked around to make sure that she hadn't caused any serious damage with whatever that was. But everything looked normal. [i]Okay, Rule Number 5: be extra-super-stinking-duper careful with your new superpowers.[/i] A giddy giggle almost escaped her at that thought, but she clamped it down, and gave Sweetie Belle a reassuring pat. "No, Sweetie Belle, that wasn't at all your fault. It was me. See, I'm…uh…I'm kind of not as good at magic as most unicorns yet," she said carefully, wincing at the near-fib. She'd really have to watch her words if she didn't want to accidentally stray off of Rule Number 2. Or tip off the kids to the fact that she was more than a [i]little [/i]abnormal for a unicorn.

Now it was Sweetie Belle giving River a reassuring pat, much to River's surprise. "It's okay, Miss River. My parents always say, some unicorns are better at magic than others, but that doesn't make them less important!"

"Heck, I'm a pegasus and I can't really fly yet," Scootaloo added, buzzing her undersized wings for effect. "It's cool."

That was about the sweetest thing she had ever heard, and River was seriously debating if it was okay to randomly hug these kids when Apple Bloom let out a shout.

"Look! I guess ya didn't need to do any particular spell, after all!"

True enough, when River looked down at the parchment in her hoof, it bore a soft, white glow. The glow shot down to the ground and then away, forming a long, dotted line that soon extended out of sight towards the Apple Farm. The Cutie Mark Crusaders let out a cheer, and River almost joined them. But she definitely wore a smile as the foursome followed the line towards their next clue.

Guilty conscience aside, maybe she [i]was [/i]going to have some fun!

Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash moved at a quick trot (or flight, in Rainbow's case) down the street, following the purple sphere. Rainbow Dash was rubbing her forehooves together and wearing a devilish grin. "I bet we find her opening some doorway to another dimension and letting in weird monsters to take over Ponyville!"

Rarity raised an eyebrow at her flying friend, her delicate white hooves working a little harder to keep up with Applejack's more athletic pace. "And why, may I ask, does that excite you so much?"

Rainbow Dash shrugged, turning a loop-de-loop. "We can take anything she can dish out! You saw her, she's a total pansy. Plus I've been itching for a good fight against evil. It's been too quiet around here since the whole Starlight Glimmer thing."

Applejack shuddered, never taking her eyes off of the purple ball of magic. "Don't remind me o' that. Durn craziest thing we ever been through. Me, I wouldn't mind a little peace an' quiet for the rest o' the year!"

The blue pegasus was about to reply when a brown stallion shot towards them from farther up the road, passing the purple ball of magic without a glance. He had some sort of hoof-held device clamped between his teeth, which became obvious when he tried to talk around it.

"Ladish! Migh' Ah ha' a wor' w-oo?"

"Ya might if'n ya take that thing outta yer mouth, Doc," Applejack chuckled, slowing to a stop along with the others. The girls were all familiar with the local (possibly mad) scientist, and a small chorus of hellos greeted him as he trotted over. Doc quickly removed the device from his mouth, holding it in his right hoof now that he didn't need said hoof to run.

"Ladies," Doc panted, wiping sweat from his brow. "A pleasure as always, but I fear I have grave news. By any chance has Princess Twilight Sparkle been experimenting with the impregnable barriers between dimensions today?"

Glances were exchanged among the mares. Except for Pinkie Pie. "Yepperdoodle!" the pink mare replied cheerfully. "Although really it was Jenn who came through first and now Twilight's trying to—"

"What she means is," Applejack interrupted, "yeah, Twilight's been fiddling with somethin' to do with other worlds back at the castle. How [i]did [/i]ya know about that, Doc?"

Doc Turner held up his device again. "Several pieces of equipment in my laboratory are dedicated to measuring various magical, meteorological, and metaphysical phenomena in the vicinity of Ponyville and the surrounding areas. I suspected that Princess Twilight was engaging in studies of an inter-dimensional nature for months now. If she has truly found a way to pierce the veil between worlds at will, she has my profound envy, as I've yet to garner my own method of affecting such a portal," he added distractedly, before giving his head a vigorous shake to come back to the point. The brown earth pony glared accusingly at the device in his hoof, as if the information he was getting were its fault somehow. "But the readings I've received since this morning are of a most concerning nature! I must speak with the princess immediately to determine if my worries are well-founded or not, because if they are, we may have a very serious problem on our hooves."

More glances were exchanged. Rarity worried her lip for a moment. "I apologize, Doctor Turner, but I'm afraid we're all a bit in the dark about the true nature of these portals to other worlds. Might I trouble you to explain exactly what kind of problem we could be facing?"

"A breach." The term made no sense to the girls, but the grave look on the doctor's face made it clear that the meaning was not good. "If my hypothesis is correct, something alien has entered our reality, which is not, of course, very dangerous in [i]itself[/i]," he added with a small chuckle, as if this were perfectly obvious. "But my equipment is telling me that an especially peculiar anomaly is straining the very barrier that separates our reality from others. I'm afraid that if we don't isolate the cause quickly," and once again the doctor's face turned quite serious, "that barrier could be breached, and there is no way to tell what sort of reality it may open us to."

Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash were all staring at each other in open, mutual worry now. "I think we better pick up the pace on findin' Jenn," Applejack said firmly. Doc was about to ask for clarification when the three girls turned back the way they had been going…and Applejack snapped, "Horse apples! Dangit, Twalight!"

The magical sphere they had been following, which apparently did not work on the same stay-close principle as its smaller counterpart, had continued on its way while they were standing around talking. It was nowhere to be seen. A chorus of groans filled the air.

"This 'Jenn' that you speak of…" Doc Turner said slowly. "Would she happen to be a black unicorn, blue-striped mane, runs about with a rather frantic look in her eye?"

The girls spun to him. "Yeah! How'd you know? Did you see where she went?" Rainbow asked, finally coming to a landing in front of the Doc. "She came yelling at Twilight this morning with a funky story about being a human from some other world, but she took off while Twilight was trying to send her home. We're tracking her down and taking care of any crazy alien monsters she brings to Equestria," the mare added with pride.

"There ain't gonna be any monsters, Rainbow," Applejack said flatly.

Doc dipped his head in a confident nod. "I knew that young lady had something to do with the spike in my equipment! She passed this way not long ago, in quite a rush. I believe that last I saw her, she was heading towards the Apple Farm in the company of our resident Cutie Mark Crusaders."

"She's with Apple Bloom?!"

"She's with Sweetie Belle?!"

"Oh, that's cool."

Rarity and Applejack glared at their significantly less concerned friend while Doc tilted his ears back. The earth pony gently cleared his throat. "Ah, yes. Is that not to your liking?"

"Ah dunno, Doc, you sure didn't make her sound safe t'be around," Applejack pointed out. She turned, narrowing her eyes as she looked towards the Apple Farm in the distance. "If she gets mah li'l sister hurt…"

"Then perhaps I can be of assistance." Doc gestured their attention to the chunky, softly-beeping device in his hoof. "This contrivance of mine is calibrated to point towards the primary source of the anomalous readings. No doubt it will take us straight to your missing interdimensional traveler."

Applejack tilted her cowboy hat back, one eyebrow raised in surprise. "You got one o' those, too? You n' Twalight sure like yer fancy gadgets."

"Oh? Perhaps I will have the opportunity to survey her equipment one day," Doc said cheerily. "I didn't realize she was such a practitioner of the practical scientific arts."

"But I thought that it was most urgent for you to speak with Twilight about the, ah, situation you described," Rarity reminded him, somewhat reluctantly.

"Perhaps," Doc said with a nod, "but it would appear that the anomaly is centered around your visitor, so she would be the logical place to start in isolating the cause of this strain on the dimensional curtain. Ergo, it would make the most sense to assist in finding her first and foremost." When none of the girls could find any fault in his logic, Doc focused back on his device, turning in a slow circle. It wasn't long before a small arrow appeared, and the doctor's green eyes lit up. "Tallyho! The game is afoot!" He reared up and took off down the road with the four mares following close behind.

Their journey soon took them out of town, Rainbow Dash zooming ahead once in a while to scout. Applejack and Rarity did their best to hide their concern for their sisters; after all, Jenn hadn't seemed dangerous. But the doc's warnings about "breaches" and "problems of most concerning natures" weighed rather heavily on the mind. "I hope Sweetie Belle isn't getting into trouble," Rarity murmured, flipping away a lock of purple mane jounced out of place by their running. "At least no more than usual."

"I was gonna say." Applejack forced a chuckle. "Them three get up to more shenanigans than every other colt 'n filly in town."

"[i]Yeah[/i]," Rainbow Dash said suddenly from over their heads. "'Cause they know what it takes to be [i]awesome[/i]. I mean, y'know, as awesome as kids outta be," she added with a flip of her hoof.

Rarity shot Rainbow Dash a coy smile. "Was that a hint of concern I heard just now, Rainbow?"

Rainbow folded her hooves in a huff, slowing her wings to a steady hover over her friends. "Hey, I totally care about Scootaloo! I just trust her to stay cool and be ready for anything. Just like I taught her," she added proudly.

"Awwww!" Pinkie gushed. "Big sister Rainbow Dash~!" She giggled as Rainbow buzzed her head so close that her main puffed into an extra thick tangle of curls.

"So you ain't the least bit worried about her an' the girls hangin' around this funny unicorn?" Applejack asked skeptically. "Considering you also seem pretty durn sure she's gonna let in an army o' monsters t'take over Equestria."

Rainbow opened her mouth to reply, then paused, worry flickering across her face. But it was gone in an instant, covered by a casual shrug. "Aw, she's… Come on, guys, I'm sure nothing really bad is gonna happen. Nothing those three can't handle!" she boasted.

"All the same," Applejack replied, brow furrowed, "I'll feel a ton better once we see they're alri—" The orange mare suddenly skidded to a halt, causing Rarity and Pinkie Pie to pile up behind. "Wait an apple-buckin' minute, this ain't the way to mah farm!"

Everypony looked up and quickly ground to a stop. Doc was so focused on the directional arrow on his device that he continued five more paces before Rarity cut off the levitation spell she'd been using to help him read it while trotting. "Eh, what? I believe we're quite close, ladies, the signal is…" The words died as he looked up at what everypony else was staring at.

The edge of the Everfree Forest.

Doc stared at the wild and forbidding trees that abruptly sprouted from the ground twenty feet ahead of them. He looked at his device again, just to be certain, and…yes, it was most certainly pointing straight towards the ominous forest, beeping insistently. The doctor cleared his throat, running a hoof under his collar. "Well, ah… Perhaps your friend didn't go to the Apple Farm, after all."

"Doc," Applejack said flatly. There was a world of danger in her quiet tone. "Are you tellin' me that this mare we're a-lookin' for might'a taken our li'l sisters into the [i]Everfree Forest?[/i]"

Doc scratched his ear with one hoof, shooting puzzled glances between the forest and his gadget. "I…am not altogether certain, Miss Applejack. In fact, I think…" He picked up the device again and continued forward. The girls could hear the beeping of his machine grow louder, and faster, and louder, and faster, until—

"Great whickering stallions! What have we here?"

Another mass movement of ponies soon had the four Elements of Harmony surrounding the doctor and his new discovery. The brown stallion gently lifted it in his hoof, green eyes wide with scientific intrigue. "Great whickering stallions…," he whispered. "This is fascinating!"

It was a rectangular box or block of some kind, a little larger than Doc's hoof; Rarity guessed it to be made of a mildly transparent plastic. "And quite a lovely shade of blue, if I do say so," she added. A seam along the side made it look like it could come apart, or be opened. And on what they decided must be the top, there was stamped a strange symbol or crest: a sword with two thin dragons facing each other from either side.

"Wow! Jenn sure shrank since we last saw her!" Pinkie Pie said thoughtfully.

"Darling, I really don't think that's—" Rarity paused when she saw Pinkie's playful wink. "Right, very funny, Pinkie Pie," the white mare finished dryly. "I think we can all agree that this wasn't what we were expecting to find. What do you make of it, Doctor?"

Doc very gently tilted the object up, down, back, and forth, murmuring under his breath. He waved his equally peculiar-looking hoofheld device over the blue rectangle again, and was rewarded with another round of excited beeping. "First of all, I must apologize, ladies," Doc said, although his giddy tone kind of ruined the apology. "I had naturally assumed that your displaced companion would have the strongest reading, and therefore lead my equipment straight to her. But this…thing has caught its attention somehow." He tapped his chin in thought, then ruffled a hoof through his spiky mane in [i]more [/i]thought. "If the readings are reacting to something brought with the mysterious mare rather than the mare herself, perhaps that's—"

"So whadda we do next for findin' Jenn an' the girls, Doc?"

Doc snapped his head around, and realized that the four mares were staring at him expectantly. "Eh? Oh, right, of course, missing not-a-pony, young fillies in peril, right, yes, top priority." He cast a longing look at the blue thing at his one hoof, and the beeping device at the other. "Ah, but…this may be rather important, if my readings are any—"

"No sweat, cadet!" Pinkie Pie bounced forward and scooped up the blue thing, depositing it directly into her bouncy mane. Doc was still trying to process this mode of storage when Pinkie turned and trotted back in the direction of Ponyville. "You guys have super-duper fun finding River and your cutie-patootie little sisters, and I'll take this back to Twilight for her whosamawhatsit and give her the updates on our special secret mission! Toodles!"

Doc shook his head hard, and reached a hoof out towards her, calling, "You must tell her to be careful! The breach could be…tampering might…" He dropped his hoof in resignation as Pinkie Pie bounced out of sight over a small hillock. "I don't feel completely comfortable with what just happened," he sighed.

"Eh." Rainbow shrugged. "It's Pinkie Pie. Either she'll make everything go crazy wrong, or find some kooky way to save the day. Either way, it'll probably work out." Ignoring the earth pony's attempt to debate the appeal of such odds, the blue pegasus shot into the sky and took a long look in all directions. "Show us which way to go next, already, Doc!" she hollered. "I don't want Scootaloo beating up all the monsters before I get a chance!"

Applejack and Rarity were already staring at the Doc when he looked at them, and so they caught him with the full force of their combined Maximum Level Distress Stares. (Rarity had always been far better at this than any pony in town, but when it came to her sister's safety, Applejack could turn up the voltage pretty high herself.) The dual effect cut right through any lingering arguments Doc might have had for separating himself from the search to continue his research on the potential world breach problem. He held up a hoof in defeat, chuckling. "Right, yes, of course. We must locate your friend if we're to have any real understanding of what's happening! If you'll just give me a moment."

A few agonizing minutes of fiddling passed, involving methods and means that completely mystified the three non-sciencey mares. But they needed his help to track down Jenn and the girls, so Rarity and Applejack made sure to smile and nod when he held his strange little device up again, the tone of its beeping a little different than before. "There! Now it should only take us to organic sources," he said proudly. "And— Ah!" The beeping was already growing in volume, the arrow pointing them into the distance.

Doc had always had an excitable nature, and now, once again, the thrill of the chase and the lure of scientific mystery filled him up with excitement. "Come, my friends!" he crowed dramatically. "The game is afoot once again!"

"This is sure turnin' out to be an interestin' day," Applejack muttered as she took off after the brown stallion.

"My only hope is that it doesn't get too much [i]more[/i] interesting," Rarity sighed, once again lamenting not keeping to her exercise regime this past month.

As the four ponies disappeared over the hill, a glowing, white, dotted line materialized, mark by mark, across the grass coming from the opposite direction, until it formed a small, glowing circle where Jenn's 3DS had just been. Nopony was around to notice, but then, most ponies wouldn't have been too concerned even if they had.

They might have been a little concerned if they'd seen the tiny hole in space that ripped open above the glowing circle. Or the yellow eyes that peered through before it snapped shut with an echoing [i]POP![/i]


End file.
